The Outsider
by F6F Freak
Summary: My first attempt at fan fiction; flinging someone from our world to the world of TwoKinds. Thanks to Tom Fischbach, author and publisher of the original TwoKinds. Note: I rate T, but age 14 is where I'm pegging the rating
1. Chapter 1

Hello all, this is my first document published here, so please give me (useful) feedback!

This is the first chapter, I will add more later, probably by 3/16/11.

Thanks and hope you all enjoy.

* * *

Curt Lane looked around the large portal chamber and to the circular recess surrounded by coils of heavy metal that facilitated the portal. Nothing had changed since his last trip... how many years ago had it been, again? Neither did he remember nor did he care to. He was much older now, much wiser, and that was what counted. He sighed and shook his head; when he'd last ventured through the portal, it was experimental. Now, soldiers went through the portal every day, traveling from this side of the globe to that. This time, he knew, the portal was set to take him to the 'beachhead' in China that had been established using transport through the portals. China had finally gone and done it; declaring war on the US, and the USAF had sent Curt's sorry tail to go establish an airbase. Last time he'd gone through the portal, he was a first lieutenant, this time, though, he was a major general and had a lot more than his old squadron to care for.

He walked down to the end of the chamber as his escorts went through the portal. He snapped his neck as he stepped on the 'plank' (a metal platform that went through the portal so one could walk through) and crossed through himself. He felt the plank vibrate under him right as he went through the portal. He didn't pay any attention to it until he realized that it was taking far too long to cross the black between the portals. He cursed to himself and kept walking; turning around between the portals was not an option. He walked out of the other portal and turned around, preparing to run back the other way. The portal destabilized and collapsed before he could get through. He cursed again, much more loudly.

He slowly swiveled around, examining his surroundings. The area was filled with ancient trees, standing massively tall. The undergrowth was not crowded, but covered in dark green grass and some bushes growing in a patch larger than his eye could see to his right. Vines grew up some of the trees, stretching for the sky and attempting to reach the sunlight that averted their presence. It looked much like some of the southern forests near where he'd grown up in rural North Carolina. Maybe that was where the portal had spat him out. Maybe.

Something rustled in the bushes. He didn't have time to draw his sidearm before it came running out. It was looking behind it and crashed right into him. It tumbled over him as he examined it, trying to figure out what the the heck it was. It had a body shaped much like his, but very lean and a little shorter than he. That was about as far as the similarities went, however. Its hands were tipped with claws, its legs ending in paws and its whole body covered with fur. Perched atop its head were two large ears, now laid back as it examined him in the same way he examined it. It looked like someone had made a hybrid of a human and a fox, actually.

It started to try and run, finally over the shock of running into him. He grabbed its arms by the wrists, keeping the thing's claws away from him and wrapped his legs around its, pinning it. _That hand-to-hand combat training I whined so much about is paying off,_ he thought. "Alright, answer me, what are you?" he asked, looking the... thing... right in its yellow eyes.

It looked at him like he was an idiot.

"Answer me!" he shouted.

"How do you not know? I am a Keidran. You know, that race your people hunt down and enslave?"

Curt let three or four of the vilest words he knew surface. The thi... _Keidran, _he corrected, tried to free itself from his grip to no avail.

"What's the hurry?" he asked, in no particular hurry himself, the little creature much weaker than he.

"You'll figure it out anyhow, but I'm running from my owner. His control spell failed. He was no good at magic," it answered.

Curt just took the reference to magic in stride. Why not magic? If there were half-human, half-animals, why not magic? "You don't worry about him, then. I'll take care of him if you promise not to go flying off if I let you go. I'm not as young as I once was. I don't feel like chasing you down."

It nodded, somber and nervous at the same time. They both stood up and Curt drew his sidearm, a 9mm Beretta, pointing it in the direction where the little Keidran had come from, figuring its owner would be coming from the same direction. Sure as the world (Curt made a note that he wasn't very sure of the world), he did, huffing as he emerged from the bushes at what Curt would have called doubletime; half walking, half running. He was looking down, following the Keidran tracks through the brush. _Skilled tracker, _Curt thought. The other man looked up for half a second; looking where he was going, then looked back down. He paused in his tracks and looked back up, not quite believing what he saw.

"That's my bloody Keidran! She ain't yours!" The man, clothed in dirty brown robes, shouted at him in a accent that sounded half British.

Curt's nose twitched. The man had been drinking; he could smell the alcohol from three feet away. Judging by the way the Keidran's nose was sampling the air, it had drawn the same conclusion.

The man looked Joe up and down, apparently surmising that he wasn't a match for Curt, who was a head taller and much heavier- and heavier with muscle, not fat. "What is that, a bloody wand?" he asked of Curt's gun. "Only students need wands. I'm no student," he said and assumed what Curt thought was supposed to be a fighting stance.

"Yeah, you're fine. He sucks at magic anyhow, much less when he's drunk," the Keidran told him in a reassuring deadpan tone.

The drunken -former- owner of the Keidran growled, a gesture Curt thought rather absurd.

"Maybe not a student. Maybe a master who's after precision," Curt said coolly. "Is it like any wand you've seen? It's specialized, for just what I need." He paused for effect. "Now, run on, pretend this never happened and I won't hurt you."

For a wonder, the drunken man fell for the bluff and grumbled as he did what he was told, sulking off through the bushes. Curt let out a sigh of relief. "I thought drunks were supposed to be more prone to doing stupid stuff?"

"I think he's been a drunkard long enough to tell the difference between what the alcohol tells him he can do and what he can really do," the little Keidran said, its ears sagging in relief.

Curt but nodded, though the thanked God in the back of his mind. _Good thing, _he thought, _I don't have much ammo. _He did a mental double-check; he had forty rounds for his pistol. He remembered that he had brought his long gun too, which had more or less unlimited supply of ammunition thanks its technology, and let out a mental sigh of relief. Curt walked over to his duffel bag, which had flown off when he was practically tackled by the Keidran. He looked over at the Keidran as he opened the bag. "You got a name?"

"My master calls me Jocasta."

"What's your real name?"

"Michaela."

"I like that one better anyhow. Come on, we need to move, he'll probably send the cops after us," Curt said as he pulled his long gun out of the bag and draped the rifle's strap over this head and looped his right arm through it. He put the bag over his shoulders by the handles.

She looked at him as they started walking away. "Where are we going?"

"We're going parallel to your path; we just can't stay too close to it. I have no idea where you were going- heck, I don't know where we are now."

"You're new here, aren't you? What happened? You didn't know what I was and it sure doesn't look like you know magic; that's no wand," she said, paused, and added, "Master must've been drunk."

"Yeah, you could say that I'm a bit new. I was... well, actually, what I was doing is classified, but something went wrong and it spat me out here. I don't know if it's another planet or an alternate reality. Either way, there are no Keidran and there is no magic where I come from."

"Where are you from then?" she asked, an eyebrow raised.

"It's a place called Cheyenne Mountain in a nation called the United States of America. That's not important. Where are we now and, while I'm at it, where are we headed?"

"We're just south of a human town, headed toward Keidran territory. It's about thirty miles south of here, past a ridge of mountains. Or at least we were. I guess I'm your slave now."

"No!" he said, almost shouting. Michaela was taken a bit off guard by it, though Curt didn't know if it was because she was surprised of his tone or his refusal to take her as a slave. He made sure to check himself and continued, "Slavery is wrong. My people did it once. We'll never do it again."

Michaela smiled, a smile very much of relief. It was a cute smile, he thought, though her fangs showed. Curt re-surveyed her now that he had a second to do so. She wore a gray cloak, but it was covered in the browns and splotchy reds of mud, the greens of grass and the wear of time. She had a mostly unkempt mop of red hair around her ears on the top of her head. Her face was outlined with white, she had a small snout for a nose, and it ended much as one would expect, with a small patch of wet skin. Around the white of her face, her fur was a light red, with a white stripe on her throat that ran down below her cloak and more than likely covered her belly. It took him a second to realize that she was giving him the same look over. He grinned, realizing that she probably didn't know what to make of him, either. He didn't wear robes or cloaks like all the other humans of the world probably wore, but instead loose green digital camouflage ABU (Air Battle Uniform) pants and jacket with a matching officer's cap. The mere pattern was impossible for the world, Curt guessed. _What does she make of me? _He asked himself.

* * *

Michaela looked the man who'd more or less saved her life up and down. She realized that she didn't even know his name. She would ask soon, but he was so strange. He didn't wear robes like she'd expect most any human to wear, but loose pants and a thick, loose fitting shirt, much like she sometimes saw Keidran slaves with better owners wearing, though he had the sleeves neatly wrapped up past his muscular biceps. Both items of clothing had many, many pockets and were covered in a pattern of tiny squares of colors varying from faded greens to light black arranged in tiger-like stripes. The pattern had to be made by magic, but she thought the man said that his world didn't have magic. She needed be wary of him, she realized; she'd gotten too comfortable around him; he might be lying about his origins. He carried two black things, one on his hip, one in his hand, that were made of metal and he carried like weapons, but couldn't possibly be; they weren't capable of being anything more than clubs if they were. He was tall, very tall, probably 6' 6", dwarfing her 5' 4" former—oh, that word felt good to think—master. His head was topped with graying blond hair that was very short, probably shorter than her fur. He had a tan bag thrown over his shoulders like it was some kind of pack, but it was unlike any she'd ever seen. She supposed that, if he did come from another world, that would make him strange to her. She reflected for a bit, thinking that if he was strange to her, how strange she must be to him.

Her cloak itched her and chaffed against her fur. It stunk, too. She'd been using it to mask her scent in the event the humans brought dogs or other Keidran to track her down. She realized that she no longer needed it, the man in the strange green—darn it, she still needed to get his name—would protect her. She very badly wanted to take it off, but she didn't want to impede their progress, would he look down on her, punish her, if she took time away from travel? Why was he even traveling with her? He didn't know where she was going, not really. She didn't know the answer to any of her questions, so she kept walking at the fast pace the man moved at. She reminded herself that she still needed to ask his name.

Finally, she forced herself to ask, not knowing why she had to force herself. "I haven't asked, but what's your name?"

"Curtis, but you can call me Curt."

She nodded and kept walking alongside him. After a couple seconds' pause, she finally asked, "So, Curt, do you always walk this fast?"

He stopped dead in his tracks. "I'm sorry! I didn't even think about it! I'm used to the military. The prime principle there is 'hurry up and wait.' I'll slow down."

She made her best attempt at a warm smile; she'd always been told that her fangs ruined it. "It's alright. I've just been on the move for most of the day, it's wearing on me."

"Next time we come to a clearing, I'll set up camp as best I can. I don't have much; I was supposed to be going to a city. Fortunately, I've learned the hard way that you always, _always,_ pack a survival kit of some form. I think I've got an emergency blanket you can use."

"Thanks, but I won't need it. I'm used to sleeping under the stars," she said, her mind going back to unpleasant times in an outdoor cage or a slave wagon, rolling and bumping as she tried to sleep.

"I'm a Southern" -she could practically hear the capitalization- "gentleman. If you don't use the blanket, neither of us will." He sounded a bit demanding, and she almost took offense until she realized that he was treating her like a real woman, giving her courtesy, something no human had ever done for her.

_He's probably just naïve, _she thought with a sigh, "Very well, then. Thank you."

He nodded, smiling; clearly glad she'd taken the offer. He looked up and around him, "Gets dark fast here, don't it?"

"Yeah, that's what I was counting on. I can see much better in the dark than any human can," she said, recalling her escape plan in more detail than she really cared to.

He grinned, but it looked like a grin suggesting that he might just be able to, too. She figured she was misinterpreting, but she couldn't know; the man was from another world, wasn't he?

She saw the trees part ahead at about the same time Curt did. She let out a sigh of relief; her paws were killing her. He grinned, looking a bit relieved himself. She wondered what he'd been doing, who he was, before whatever had went wrong had, well, went wrong. She didn't know what had gone wrong, but she slowly realized that she was glad it had as they came upon the clearing.

She simply fell backwards onto the soft ground, exhausted. Curt, however, ever the practical man, surveyed the area. "As good a place as any," he declared and let the bag on his back drop to the ground. He shifted the large black... thing... he had been carrying in front of him so it hung from behind his right shoulder by the strap attached to it.

Michaela sat up and begun to pull the filthy old rag of a cloak off. Curt looked over, his face showing nothing but shock. She paused. He was about to exclaim something before his face relaxed and he rolled his eyes, probably realizing that she was covered in fur and that her removing her clothing wasn't anything odd. He went back to getting things out of his bag. She shrugged and finished removing the rag she wore. She took in a deep breath, the air suddenly fresher. She noticed Curt's scent for the first time thanks to the removal of the block on her senses. It was unlike any of her world, smelling sweet and spicy. She subconsciously leaned closer, trying to place the scent.

"There it is!" he exclaimed, pulling out a shiny little packet. He looked over at her, and, finding that she had slowly crawled over to him, now only feet away, drew back a bit in surprise. Like he seemed to do with everything, he took it in stride, tore the packet open and handed her the shiny little thing.

She realized that the packet was actually clear and what he had handed her was the actual shiny object. She decided to pull a page from his book and shrugged it off. It smelled putrid at first, but the odor quickly went away. She looked at the shiny thing again, trying to figure out what he wanted her to do with it.

He laughed, realizing what she was doing. "You can unfold it now, but I'd advise you don't until we bed down. It has a nasty tendency to blow away if you unfold it too early," he said.

She looked at it and found that it actually had a large crease down the middle of its side. "Oh," she muttered as she slowly unfolded a piece of the thing, being careful not to tear it while trying to figure out what it was. "This is the emergency blanket you talked about, then?"

"Yep," he said, smiling. "Now, we need to build a fire. Something tells me that if it gets dark that fast, it'll get cold equally fast."

She nodded, "Yes, it does. Very cold."

"At least you've still got your fur."

She shook her head. "It's my summer coat. Not very warm at all."

He nodded and started digging through the bag again- just what all _did_ he have in that thing? "Here," he said, handing her a coat patterned just like the shirt (that was a shirt, wasn't it?) he wore.

"Won't you be cold then?"

"Naw, I slept through nights colder than this with only a t-shirt. I got a jacket and a shirt on," he said as he unrolled the sleeves on what must've been the jacket.

She nodded and put the coat on. It was massive on her, but it was very warm and smelled very, very sweet; fresh. It was part of what she smelled on Curt. What was that smell? She was about to ask Curt, but when she looked up, she realized that he was nowhere to be seen, probably off to get firewood. She looked at the coat again, finding that it was lined with very smooth fabric that felt like silk, though Michaela didn't think it was, and it was covered in pockets, four on its front, with one on the sleeve for reasons she couldn't see.

She started to feel devious and crawled over to Curt's bag on all fours, careful to stay quiet for reasons she didn't quite know. She smelled so many different odors coming from it, some sweet like the coat, some very foul, almost like the oil soldiers used to coat their swords. There was one odor, very faint, like the one she smelled on Curt; spicy. There was another, which she realized was like the blanket she still held in her hand. She didn't know the scent from anywhere, but she knew it smelled horrible.

Moving beyond scent, she felt the outside of the bag its self, a fabric she recognized as canvas, the same fabric as the tent under which she'd been auctioned off to her first master. She looked inside it and started going through it, feeling and sniffing each item, finding mainly clothes, some of the pattern and material Curt and, she realized, she, wore. Some of the garments were blue and of an itchy kind of fabric that wasn't wool, folded very neatly, and some, folded less neatly, were white or tan and very thin. There were also some of the pattern she wore, but tan instead of green. She realized that all of the clothing smelled sweet like the coat she wore and figured that the smell was some kind of soap. She nodded, satisfied with the reasoning.

One of her ears, turned up and alert, heard something in the woods. She went back to where she had been sitting and started looking at the blanket again, pretending to be captivated by its shine and otherworldliness, hoping to draw on her looks as an ignorant slave girl.

Curt came out of the forest, carrying a lot of wood of various sizes, and sat it all down in the center of the clearing, five or six feet from the bag. As he leaned the larger pieces against each other, standing them up like a cone, he glanced over at her. "Went through my bag, didn't you?"

She gritted her teeth, grimacing, her fangs showing very clearly. Her ears drooped of themselves. Her voice shook as she asked, "How'd you know?"

"For one, I'd go through the bag if I were you. For two, I wouldn't leave a pair of underwear sticking out of the top," he returned in monotone, never looking away from the fire he was building.

"I'm so sorry," she said, her voice weak. "You won't hurt me, will you? Please don't. I'll go, leave you alone. I'll never trouble you again. I'm so sorry."

He didn't say a word, which worried her. Instead, he stood up, his face absolutely blank, and walked over to her. She couldn't read anything from his body language, clearly trained to hide his feelings. He keeled down to where she sat, legs crossed, face in her hands, ready to burst into tears. He began to raise his arms. She closed her eyes and winced, waiting to be struck. She didn't know how he would hit her. A punch? A slap? How?

Of everything she expected to feel, what she actually did feel was not one of them. She felt arms wrap around her, under her arms, hands that came up behind her and rested on her neck. It was a hug, but not a romantic hug, not a hug like a sibling would give, but a hug like someone might give at a funeral. He gently pushed her head into his shoulder. She rested it there, taking in his scent, now so calming. Tears ran down her face, onto his jacket, but she was silent, taking in the moment. Curt somehow knew all the pain she'd dealt with every single day as a slave and exactly how to calm her.

"It's over now," he whispered. "As long as there is breath in my lungs and blood in my veins, you'll never be a slave again. You are free."

* * *

Curt sat on a large log in front of the rather impressive fire he'd built. Michaela sat beside him, half asleep, her head lying on his shoulder. She held the stick of the match he'd used to light the fire. She'd thought it was magic at first, but he quickly explained the chemical reaction by which it worked. She was somber now, clearly so tired, but she refused to go to sleep, instead resting her head on him.

Curt knew that she was tired from running and walking all day with him, but he didn't think that was why she was so tired. The main tiredness that afflicted her was probably Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, though she didn't know it (and, upon second thought, she probably didn't know what PTSD was, anyhow). Her body wasn't yet ready to sleep, and her mind no doubt whirled, but she was still tired.

Curt wasn't ready to sleep, either. For one, he had several hours of jetlag to accommodate for; it was much later here than it had been when he left the US. Mainly, however, his mind whirled. He'd promised Michaela (he truly did love that name) that he'd never let her be a slave again, and he wasn't sure he could hold that promise up. He was but one man; could he truly protect her forever? And what if the US found a way to rescue him? He couldn't take her with him, she'd become a slave to science and would probably never leave Cheyenne. That was no life for her.

Thinking of home made him instinctively pull a photograph, the only one he kept aside from his ID, out of a breast pocket. His wife and two daughters smiled back at him so pleasantly from many years ago. It was the last photograph he had of all of them before the kids left the house.

"That's a good painting," Michaela said slowly and softly. "They yours?"

Curt didn't tell her that it was a photograph; he didn't care to explain. Instead, he replied, "Yeah. They were mine."

"Were?"

"They were killed by weapons you've never heard of in a war you've never heard of between nations you've never heard of," Curt said, fighting back tears. His family had been hit in the Chinese nuclear first strike.

"They were military? Those kids look too young."

"They weren't too young, they'd both grown up and left the house, but they didn't follow me into the military, they saw how hard it was on a family," he said, shaking his head, "And said that they'd never do it to their family. Judith (that's this one) was pregnant with a little boy. _My grandson._ Esther was engaged. He was a good man, I thought. The only one I ever approved of," he paused to wipe the silent tears from his eyes, "Our enemy had nothing to lose, so they made sure we lost everything. Their economy had collapsed and their government was crumbling, so they decided to go down fighting." Curt almost said 'go down in flames,' but there were no aircraft here, so he guessed that that figure of speech wouldn't be here, either.

"That's terrible, I'm so sorry… I can relate, though. I had my family taken from me, too. Or, more like, I was taken from my family."

"Yeah. How old were you?"

"Barely three, but that's not very young for us. We age much faster than humans."

"You were still a kid, though, right?"

"Yeah," she said, clearly not following him.

"Kids have an extraordinary gift to bounce back, to keep going. When you're 50- something, you have a whole lot of trouble bouncing back."

She looked at him in shock. "You're how old?"

"53."

"I knew humans lived a long time, but I had no idea. You look so young."

"We have a lot of advanced medicine where I come from. Humans here probably don't live as long as I would've," he said, realizing that healthcare here was probably pretty low-grade, too, unless, he wondered, magic was useful as a healing tool.

"Oh, yeah, what year did you say it was where you come from?" She asked sleepily.

"Two-thousand and sixty-four," he said, making sure to space it out, not because she was stupid—she was far from it by what he'd observed—but because she'd never heard a date pronounced 'twentysixtyfour,' as he did. "And what year did you say it was here?"

"I think master said it was 118 last time he mentioned what year it was. I'm not sure," she said and yawned.

The yawn, apparently contagious, spread over to Curt. "Alright," he said, "time to get to bed."

She nodded and pulled the emergency blanket he'd given her out of a pocket on the coat he'd also given her. Her ears drooped, which Curt took to mean she was tired. She slowly unfolded the blanket, apparently trying not to rip it with her claws. Once she had it large enough to fit her small frame, she (literally) curled up under it.

When in an unfamiliar or hostile environment, soldiers usually traded watches throughout the night. Curt figured that, as light a sleeper as he was and as fast as he had to wake up on normal Air Force duty, he'd be fine should anyone come on their site. He put small hearing aids in, made just for this purpose, and turned them all the way up. The least little noise would wake him with those in. He pulled a pair of ABU pants and a large towel from his duffel bag. He sat the pants, still folded neatly, on a spot of ground about three feet from the fire and laid down. He flapped the towel out over him and begun to lay perfectly still, as he would for hours, his mind turning, trying to make sense of all the information he'd taken in over the past day. He heard Michaela rustling every once in a while, the emergency blanket making a racket each and every time.

Finally, he drifted off into a nervous sleep. The little hearing aids in his ears beeped and vibrated gently, waking him up without disturbing anyone around him at precisely 0600 the next morning (they synced with his watch, which he'd set to the sun), again, just like they were designed to do. Generals weren't supposed to carry the things, but Curt had managed to keep them through all of his promotions.

He slowly got up, ignoring the protest his back and knees made as he did so. He folded the towel up and threw it and the folded pants into his duffel bag. He rebuilt the fire, which had almost, but not quite, died. He kept it low, only wanting to burn off the firewood he'd gathered and not yet burned—but also in an effort to ward the morning cold off. His long gun was still propped up against the log he'd set up as a bench. He picked it up and shouldered it. He picked up the only stick he didn't plan to burn and held it as he dug through his bag. He finally found his small survival kit and opened the little bag. Inside it was a small reel, about three quarters of an inch thick and two in diameter. Around the outside of the reel were a hundred and eighty feet of fishing line. He took about ten feet off and cut it with the knife in his boot. He used a clove hitch to tie it to the very end of the stick and dug around in the survival kit until he found a small plastic container, 5"x3", sectioned off in small compartments, containing various hooks and baits. He wasn't about to go digging for worms, so he took a piece of his best artificial bait for fishing in streams and attached it to the end his line (the bait had a hook built in). He pulled out a small bobber, halfway attached it to the line and wrapped the line around the stick, slung it over his left shoulder, pocketed the bait container and walked to the stream forty or fifty yards out in the forest to the east of the campsite, where Michaela still slept pleasantly and peacefully.

He unrolled the line and sat his rifle at the base of a tree. He looked at the depth of the water where he intended to cast to and set the bobber to a little more than half of the depth up the line on his makeshift rod. Using his thumb to keep the extra line in check, he cast the bait out into the stream, landing the bobber just where he wanted to. His mind flashed back to pleasant memories of cane pole fishing (where he'd learned to fish without a reel) with his father and grandfather, and more recent ones of fishing with his daughters and wife. Judith, the older of the two, always had been a bit of a tomboy, she loved to fish. Esther, however, took after her mother. She could fish just fine, but she never could touch the fish or, for that matter, the worm.

He also, more faintly, recalled stunning his survival training instructors with the skill as the bobber was jerked under the water. He jerked the stick back with his right hand, finding, to his surprise, that he had hooked the fish. He grabbed the line with his left hand and pulled the fish in. He repeated the exercise four times, only having to cut the line once. He hated it when fish swallowed the hook, but it was life. He rebuilt the fire when he got back to camp, making it level. He fileted the fish (being sure to recover his lost hook, there was no telling how long he'd be stuck in the wilderness with a very limited supply of them) and started cooking them in the pan from his mess kit. He took a deep breath in. They smelled very good.

* * *

Michaela woke up to her nose telling her good things and her mouth drooling. _Fish, _she thought with a smile. She crawled out from under the silver blanket under which she'd spent the night very warm. She saw Curt sitting on the log, bent over toward the fire. Hearing her, he looked over and smiled. "Good morning," he said, "how'd you sleep?"

"Better than I have in many, many years. You?" she asked, trying to keep as warm a smile as she could on her face.

He chuckled, "Like crap, but that's fine. I had a lot to think about."

"You never moved though. I thought you were sound asleep."

"No, many years in the military have taught me how to sleep without moving. You rollover in any of their bunks and you fall face first on the floor."

"Oh," she said, having no better answer.

"Ah, look, they're done," he said, grinning as toothily as any human could. Michaela felt her tail wag and her ears stand up of themselves. He pulled the pan he had the fish in out of the fire and sat it on the log beside him, to the opposite side of where he had that black thing propped up. On the ground in front of him was a medium-sized pot filled with other pots, pans and plates. He took one of the plates out, put two fishes' worth of filet on it and handed it to her. He did the same for another plate, but kept it for himself.

She grabbed one of the filets with her left thumb and forefinger and ate it whole. She gulped it down and did the same with the next one. She had the next one over her mouth when she noticed the look on Curt's face; a mix of horror and fascination. "What?" she asked, looking at him questioningly.

She noticed the fork (she'd had to clean enough of them to know what a fork was) he was holding by the teeth, with its handle turned out to her. "Oh."

He shrugged as he turned it around, holding it by its handle and started eating himself. Just like he did with everything else, he just took it in stride. What all had he gone through to learn that kind of adaptability? Michaela realized that she didn't want to know but she'd probably find out anyhow. She proceeded to eat the other filets in the same manner as she'd ate the first couple and watched as Curt ate his; she'd never seen a human eat before. Her master always locked her and the other slaves in a small room before he ate. When he finished, he gave them his scraps and as little food as he possibly could. She suddenly realized that Curt had not only fed her the same amount as he had ate, but he'd given her a plate before he made his own. She suppressed the urge to hug him. Curt ate fast, but it seemed awkward to her, as he cut squares with the fork, speared them, and shoveled them into his mouth.

As soon as he finished and sat the plate down, she practically tackled him with a hug, knocking him off the log and into the grass behind it.

"What the heck was that for?" he asked, almost sounding mad, but more surprised.

"I'm sorry… You didn't like it?"

"No, you took me off guard. I like it just fine," he said, smiling, "but, again, what was that for?"

"What do you think? Rescuing me, but mainly for treating me like a person. Nobody has ever done that."

They laid there in the grass, her beside him, the sun just starting to peek out of the trees. "You know, I always thought that I had a hard life, but I don't think I had any idea. No matter how bad things got, at least people still treated me fairly. I was still a person, I can't imagine how it would've been had I not been able to count on even that," he said, looking off with a fixed glaze.

"My life wasn't that bad," she said, "Master wasn't the worst I could've had. He wasn't abusive except when he was drunk. He never had to beat us because of the control spells. I hear that there are some that would rather have the joy of breaking slaves the hard way," she said and winced, "Oh, and he sucked at magic, which was good because it provided some comic relief when the spells failed. Oh, and because it let me escape to you," she said and hugged him again.

"You're attaching me to your freedom," he said.

"Yes, I am," she said and smiled playfully and devilishly, no longer caring that her fangs showed.

"That's the problem. You're not attaching it mildly; you seem to be attaching it romantically. There's a name for the condition, but I don't remember it."

"I don't see the problem," she said, rolling on top of him, straddling him on all fours, still smiling devilishly. How could she make herself any more appealing to him? She was already nude. No, she still had his coat on. She shed it, "It's getting hotter out here, isn't it?"

"No, you're getting warmer," he said, flatly, looking her in the eyes, a gesture she still didn't like.

What had she done wrong? How had she offended him? He acted like he liked her, but he didn't anymore. It had to of been something she'd done. But what? Getting on top of him like she had? Tackling him? No, he said he didn't mind that. So it had to be getting on top of him. She slowly resituated herself, lying beside him, tears coming to her eyes. "What did I do, what… Was it?" She finally asked.

He didn't respond with words at first. She felt his arm, so large and muscular, go under her neck and diagonally under her back. He pulled her light body over halfway on top of him, part of her chest and head resting on his. She wouldn't call it a hug, but it was somewhat. He rubbed her back, again, knowing exactly how to soothe her.

But she thought that getting over him had been what got him mad at her in the first place. _Humans are so confusing, so undeceive,_ she thought. She could still smell that spicy aroma that hung on Curt, still so calming, despite everything else.

Finally, he replied with words. "It was nothing you did. I don't hate you and I haven't stopped liking you, but I don't like you like you clearly do me. You don't really like me either, you'll find. You like freedom_. _Because I am freedom to you, you like me, too."

It made sense, but she didn't want to believe it. She _liked _Curt. He probably thought of her more as a little sister or, maybe one of the daughters he'd already lost. That wasn't how she wanted him to like him, but it would do for now. She finally relaxed, her head sitting lightly on his chest, her ears flopping out. She turned the one closest to his chest down to face his chest. She heard his heartbeat, so strong and clear. Her tears were dry and she wasn't sad, but she didn't know how to feel. She wanted to be sad because Curt didn't like her, but she wanted much worse to be happy because she was free—oh, that word felt good!

"C'mon, we need to get going. We need to clean up camp and get out of here, they're probably tracking us. We can't afford to waste time."

She sighed, feeling her ears droop. She walked over to the blanket she'd slept under and stared at it blankly. How _was _she supposed to clean it up? Wad it?

"Fold it up in the exact opposite way you unfolded it," Curt said, voice raised, from across the small campsite. She smiled and felt her ears perk up. Curt had known her for less than a day and yet he somehow seemed to know just what she was thinking. She wondered how he did that as she fussed with the blanket.

* * *

Curt pulled his folding shovel out of its holster on his belt, unfolded it, and packed the remaining ashes from the fire down. He slid the plug of grass he'd dug out for the fire pit back over onto the fire pit. He used the shovel to pack it down. The majority of the ashes were spread out all over the campsite in layers far too thin for any eye to perceive, the log had been rolled out into the woods and he'd chucked the wood that hadn't burned completely into the stream. It would take a heck of a tracker to find the campsite now. _The Air Force taught me well,_ he thought with a smile.

He looked over and found that Michaela had finally finished folding the emergency blanket, finally being the operative word. He'd cleaned up the whole campsite in the time it took her to fold it up, but he didn't mind, he suspected that she'd get a whole lot better at it by the time he got her home.

She handed him the little silver square and he began to stuff it into his duffle bag, but paused. He pulled an ABU jacket out of the bag and handed it, along with the blanket, to her.

"What's this for?" she asked timidly.

"For one, it blends in with the forest very well. For two, those two lumps on your chest are incredibly distracting. For three, you'll look like you're mine; these _are_ the only jackets like this on the planet, after all. You're not, but anyone who comes upon us don't need to know that."

Michaela clearly wasn't sure how to take that one, but she didn't say anything. Curt guessed that her cheeks were probably turning red under her white fur. She reminded him of his wife with that nervous smile and, well, her whole demeanor; she wasn't naïve, but she still managed to be playful and cheerful despite all. And, moreover, she was tough, bouncing back from most anything life could throw at her. He zipped up his duffel bag and watched her put the jacket on out of the corner of his eye. He slung his rifle hanging loosely in front of him and put his arms through the handles of the duffel bag again. Michaela was sniffing the jacket as she tried to get it to fit properly. Like the coat he'd lent her last night (which he was still beating the fur off of), the jacket was designed to fit large, though Curt helped her roll the sleeves up so it wouldn't chaff her fur as badly. He hoped that its loose fit and smooth lining wouldn't bug her too much.

"How's that?" he asked.

"Wonderful, thank you," she replied.

"Alright, let's get moving, then," he said.

Hours later, they were still walking, though Curt had to be very careful not to get up to the stiff march he'd learned in the Air Force; Michaela couldn't walk that fast for long. The handles of the duffel bag dug into his shoulders; the bag wasn't made for hikes and didn't have the handles for it. Or maybe Curt was just older than the last time he went for a long hike. _Or maybe, just maybe, it's a bit of both, _he thought. It probably was, too; he'd gotten softer in his tenure as a general. When you weren't in the field, you tended to slack on the fitness requirements. Fortunately, Curt hadn't slacked too much, he was still very fit for a man of his age. He suspected that he'd need that fitness on this world.

Michaela walked beside him, still occasionally sniffing the jacket he'd lent her. She'd somehow combed that mop of hair she had had down to the point where it looked halfway decent with just her claws; she'd been working on it most of the way they were walking. He'd made a note that the next time they were in a town, he'd get her a brush and maybe a comb for the both of them. He'd been given gold coins for his trip in China- after their economic collapse, gold was the only currency there- and he intended to use them to buy supplies (and a framed pack, hopefully). After he ran out of the coins, he didn't know what he'd do, but he hoped that he'd have Michaela back to her people by that time. After he got her home, he had even less of an idea of what he'd do. Curt habitually thought in both the long-term and in the grand scale. This situation was forcing him to think in the short-term and the small scale because he had no information, no intelligence, no data, no nothin', about this world. He had to make his decisions as he came to them, something very foreign for an Air Force general. The stress, physical and mental, was wearing on him slowly.

Michaela, on the other hand, probably hadn't been happier in years. He envied that slightly, but tried to keep focused. They kept walking, for the most part in silence; Michaela was panting (quite literally) and had a lot of trouble talking thanks to it. Curt had, for the most part, shut off his mind, walking mechanically and attempting to not allow his thoughts to reach back to his home and his family. They still did, far more frequently that he'd of liked. He remembered when he thought about killing himself; for what had he to live? His family was gone, his country, his world, in ruins. Finally, the Air Force told him that they were launching a joint attack with the Army and Marines on land via the portal. He'd then decided that he'd live for revenge, to avenge his family. He had, launching strategic bombings with remote UAVs and securing the beachhead in the air. He was going to get more revenge personally when he traveled through the portal.

But now what? For what did he live now? The promise. He'd promised Michaela that he would protect her and he would for as long as he was alive. He didn't know how he would, but somewhere deep inside, he knew.

"Ah," he said when he saw a break in the trees, "That looks like the edge of the forest. There should be a town down there. I can get some supplies... And some lunch."

"But what about me?" Michaela asked him.

"You can stay here."

"You said they were following us. What if they find me?"

"I said that they were _probably_ tracking us. They may not be. Your other option is to come with me into the town. As far as I know, there is no third option."

"I don't want to go into a town! That's a _human _town!"

"Listen, it's your decision. You can stay here, or you can go into the town. It's a lose-lose for you, I know. You have to choose the lesser of two evils. I cannot tell you which is lesser. I can tell you that I'll be there to protect you if you go into the town."

"Then I'll go with you," she said distantly.

"Alright, hold on, I'm going to conceal my bag," he said. He put the bag behind some bushes and sprayed deodorizer over the whole area.

She wrinkled her nose, "What is that?"

"Wait for it," he replied.

She started sniffing again, "It's gone."

He grinned, "Exactly. It's designed so you can hide your bag or mask your trail from tracking dogs." He shouldered his gun and motioned to Michaela. "C'mon. The faster we get down there, the faster it's over with."

Her ears drooped and her tail went between her legs. Her whole body shook. It wasn't a reply of words, but it told Curt far more than any words could've.

"It _will _be okay. I will _not _let anything happen to you. You have to trust me," he said, making an attempt at being firm but not aggressive.

She nodded, taking in a deep breath. "Let's go."


	2. Chapter 2

So, here's the second chapter, as you're probably aware.

I've delivered it on time and there will be a chapter three, though I have no idea when I'll have it finished; there are some sequences in it that are hard to write.

As always, enjoy; feedback is appreciated.

* * *

Michaela thought that the humans having a location outside of town clearly labeled "Tie your slaves here!" was slightly odd, but then again, weren't the humans an odd people? Curt had marched her straight past it, whispering again that she'd never be a slave if he had any say in it. They rapidly found out that the slave tie-up wasn't a courtesy extended by the townspeople; you _had _to tie your slaves up there. Curt, however, had been clever. She recalled him yelling at the fat Templar who served as the town's sheriff,

"She has a control spell! I tell her not to leave, she won't leave! I _will not_ buy your overpriced rope to do something I don't have to!" Curt was leaning over the little man, right in his face, the veins on his forehead throbbing as he shouted.

"Do you want to go into town or not?" the sheriff had yelled right back.

"Do you want me to spend my money on taxes that will end up on _your _paycheck or not? I can walk a few more miles, it don't bug me," he had said, pushing a finger into the sheriff's shoulder on the word 'your.' The sheriff had let her stay there, untied, and let Curt go into town.

Curt had told her that he'd hurry, but she stood with the other slaves—no, stood with slaves, she was no longer a slave—looking for Curt an hour later.

Finally, she saw him walking slowly out of town, a new pack with a wooden frame on his back, the larger black thing in his hands. He never even stopped as he walked by her, "C'mon, Michaela. Let's get out of this stupid place."

Acting like she was suddenly released by the control spell, she took off with him, at an even faster pace than he normally took, something Michaela took as a sign of his irritation.

"What happened?" she asked timidly.

"They're a bunch of bloody robbers!" Curt practically screamed back at her.

"Calm down, I can practically smell the anger," she said, trying to sound calm herself.

"Right, sorry," he said, lowering his voice and slowing down a little, "We'll get my pack and get out of here."

"Sounds like a good idea to me." She noticed that the spicy scent she'd smelled on Curt was fading slowly. She didn't know that a person's scent could go away. Actually, she'd been told that only magic could mask a scent, but didn't it make the scent go away completely and immediately? _Humans are strange enough, _Michaela thought, _why'd I have to go and start liking the strangest one of them all?_

They got back up to where Curt had his other pack hidden. He dug in the bushes for a second and retrieved it. He sat it and the new pack with a wooden frame beside each other, carefully transferring contents between them, organizing neatly. When he came to a certain pocket on the new pack, he stopped, "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. I got this for you," he said and pulled the item out of the pack, handing it to her while hiding it with his large hands for as long as he could. Michaela guessed that he'd used the technique before.

Unable to wait any longer, she finally just grabbed his hands and pulled them apart, causing him to grin widely and revealing the little hairbrush he held.

She was unable to resist the urge and practically tackled him with a hug, licking his face. Realizing what she' done, she stopped, jerked off of him and covered her muzzle with both hands, shocked at how she'd been unable to resist both urges.

He laid there in shock for a couple of seconds and Michaela feared the worst—at least until he broke out laughing. She loosened her hands off her muzzle and cocked her head, "What's so funny?"

"Here I am complaining about my situation, when I'm about the luckiest man to ever come from my planet."

She shook her head slightly, "What?"

"Here I am grumbling and complaining about getting thrown out into a new world that I've no knowledge of, and I don't realize how great it really is."

Michaela didn't understand at all. She thought that he didn't like her, that he was only with her because of the promise he'd made. Had she read too much into his words and actions?

"You don't follow, do you? No, I don't blame you, it ain't very obvious. I'm lucky because I've got a beautiful girl who likes me (imagine that, liking _me) _and is as happy as a dog is every time she sees me. I've always thought that mankind could learn from a dog's love; always happy to see you, no matter how long it'd been."

Michaela stared at him in disbelief... "Wait a second... Did you visit the tavern?"

"Let's just say yes..."

She sniffed him, especially his face. "That's the first time I've ever seen anyone lie to say that they _were _drunk when they weren't."

"What the heck _is _wrong with me?" Curt muttered as he stood up.

"You saw the light?" Michaela said hopefully.

He smiled warmly, "Maybe. Maybe."

Michaela heard a rustle in the woods behind her. An ear shot up and rotated itself in the direction automatically.

"You hear something?" Curt whispered.

"Yeah."

He quickly shifted so he held the black thing where the larger end was up against his shoulder, the smaller circular end pointed into the forest where her ear pointed. "Who goes there?" he shouted and motioned for Michaela to get down. His form was odd, but it seemed very much like combat forms she'd seen soldiers use, right leg straight out behind him, left leg with a bent knee, his back straight, his whole form bent forward slightly at the hip. "Don't make me start making fire randomly out there. Come out, hands where I can see 'em!"

Curt didn't know magic. _Good bluffer, _Michaela thought.

"I don't think so," came the reply from a voice clearly her former master's.

Curt shrugged, breaking his rigid form for half a second. "Very well. Michaela, cover your ears. This thing is loud." He used his thumb to flip a little switch she'd never noticed on the thing before as she held her ears against her head as tightly as she could. Suddenly, he pulled back with his right forefinger and fire leapt from the front of the thing. Possibly the loudest noise Michaela had ever heard came from the thing alongside the fire.

Pain bolted through her ears and she fell on the ground, curled up, holding her head tightly as the noise kept repeating over and over again. She felt the pain tear through her in waves each time Curt made the thing spit fire. Tears poured from her eyes. Why was he torturing her like this? The fire didn't reach where her master was; it only went a foot in front of the black thing! She screamed in agony.

The noise stopped. Curt ran over to where she was, dropping the black thing and wrapping her in a hug. "I'm so sorry, Michaela! I _know_ that hurt." He paused, still holding her tightly, before pulling his head where she could see his evil grin. "I got the sorry abusive drunkard, though."

She returned the hug in full. "It was worth it, then," she said lowly, though her ears still reminded her that she wasn't fully sure it was worth it. The pain subsided and she was able to think straight again. "But how? What _is _that?"

"Long story. We call it a 'gun.' That one that I just fired is called a rifle or a long gun, the one on my hip is usually called a pistol. What it does is fling a projectile, kinda like a little metal arrow, at hundreds of feet per second. My long gun's bullets (that's what we call the projectiles) go faster than the speed of sound."

"Is it magic?" She asked, confused. Magic could be used to make arrows fly faster and straighter. Was that how this... _Gun_ worked?

"I've already told you, I have no magic. It's a chemical reaction, kinda like matches. Now, let's go see if he's still alive," he said, offering her a hand to stand up.

She took it, noting again the courtesy Curt always gave her. _Hehe, courtesy Curt, courtesy Curt, curtsy Curt..._

They came to where her former master laid, breathing heavily. Michaela smelled the iron stench of blood very strongly, and noted the lack of alcohol on him, which was unusual. She grinned toothily, which looked evil with her fangs. "Hello, former master. You never let us call you by your name. Doesn't matter now, does it? Look who's the master now. I may not know your name, but you know mine. And right now, it's 'master.'" His stubborn pride kept him from begging her to heal him as his life slipped away.

"Alright, let's get out of here. It's only a matter of time before the people in that freaking town hear the shots and come running up here to find this," Curt said, rushing her back to the bags. He quickly wadded up his old bag and threw it in the new one, which he slung on his back before he took off running, dragging Michaela with him. "I have an idea. C'mon," he said, almost as though he wasn't dragging her. She didn't think that his usual charm and courtesy were fading; he knew what to do in such a sticky situation. Michaela sure as heck didn't.

She ran behind him and crouched behind a set of bushes in the forest with him. They were deep in the forest, a long ways from the body, but she could barely see it as the townspeople came running up the hill. They found the body and some started fanning out through the forest while others went back to the town, no doubt to get dogs or Keidran to track down the murderer.

"Alright, we need to walk back along the exact path of our previous scents so it looks like we hadn't been there before, lead the way," Curt whispered to her.

"But they'll see us!"

"Walking up ten minutes _after_ it happened. See the beauty of it?"

Michaela did. If the others were going to find their scent anyhow, it might as well of been as they walked up, making it look like they were coming to look after they heard the noise, _shots, _Curt had called them. So, she led the way, following their scents from before. She noticed that Curt's scent had changed drastically, too. It now smelled like a normal humans'—it was still his own, but normal, not like the otherworldly spice from when she first met him. What caused that? She decided that she would have to ask Curt when they got out of the situation in which they were currently stuck.

They came upon the clearing. "What happened? I heard something," Curt said, actually sounding very shocked to Michaela's ears.

One of the people from the town replied, "We've had a murder. A slave trader from outside of the village was killed by some kind of magic we've never seen. Wait, you've got a Keidran? Get it to find the scent of the murderer, if it can."

"She's a _she, _not an _it, _and go on, Michaela. See if you can find who committed this... atrocity. Take us to the body, maybe she can smell it better there," Curt said. The man from the town was a little surprised by the first sentence, but forgot about it by the third and led the way. They arrived at the body.

Michaela dutifully stooped beside the body and sniffed it up and down. She couldn't find any of their scent on the body itself, which made her let out a sigh of relief. She shook her head, "Nothing on it, nothing around it."

"Must've been some kind of long-range spell," the man from town muttered. He looked to Michaela. "You smell anything out of the ordinary around here, then?"

She stood up and walked around the area (especially where Curt's bags had been, their scent was strong there), sampling the air with her nose. It was all a show, she knew, but she kind of got into it. "Nothing that I can tell."

The man from the town and several people that had gathered around the only Keidran in the area shook their heads or made murmurs of discontent. "Can we trust her? She's a bloody Keidran!" One of them shouted.

"I made the control spell myself," Curt said. "It makes her always tell the truth." _Darn good liar, _Michaela thought.

The first man from the town nodded. "Okay, then." He scratched his beard. "They must've hid their scent using magic... Only assassins should know how to do that. Why would an assassin want to kill a slave trader who doesn't really bother anyone?"

"He bothers Keidran," Michaela said. Everyone stared at her. "There _are _Keidran assassins, you know?"

The man with a beard looked at Curt, "You should teach her to keep her mouth shut when she doesn't need to open it."

Curt shrugged. "It doesn't bother me. You know, she has a good point; you shouldn't discard it just because of who she is."

Many of the people from the town broke out laughing. "New here, ain't you?" called the same one that had questioned Michaela's accountability.

"Yes. What problem do you have with her theory? It stands to reason that a slave trader would be a target for Keidran assassins."

"Do you think that they could've made their way this far into human territory? You're out of your bloody mind! We're twenty miles from their border!"

Curt shrugged. "Well, then, let's leave, Michaela. It seems that our usefulness here has ended."

She nodded and came with him as they marched south, towards her home. They arrived at another forest about half a mile on the other side of the town. Curt shook his head as they entered them. "What is it?" Michaela asked.

"So that's how they treat y'all, huh?" He shook his head again. "That's horrible."

"You get used to it."

"Nothing either of us can do about it, I don't guess," Curt muttered.

Michaela caught a good whiff of his scent and guessed it was his true scent, after the spicy one wore off. She shook off the mental fog, "No, there isn't. I suppose I was getting too used to being treated like a person by you. I forgot that I'm still just a Keidran."

_"Just _a Keidran? _Just _a Keidran?" he said, staying just below screaming. "You are not _just_ anything. You are as much a person as I. Haven't you seen that by now? I'm not treating you specially. I'm treating you like I would any human."

"Any human female," she corrected. "Yeah, I guess you're right, though. When you get told that you're something enough, you start thinking that you are that."

He blushed a little, which was easy to see on a human, but he nodded. He pulled a strange looking compass out of a side pouch on the pack, checking their direction and re-orienting them properly south. "Forgot I had this," he muttered, motioning to the compass as he returned it to his pack, "I had been using the sun."

They walked for a long while in silence, Michaela submerged in her thoughts, many of them centered on Curt, who she assumed was in deep thought himself. She wondered what he thought about. "It's really a beautiful day, though, isn't it?" Michaela finally asked, not able to stay in such gripping silence for so long.

Curt looked up and around him, "Too cold for me, to be honest with you," he said.

"Even now? It won't be dark for a few more hours."

"Yeah. Same as my gun was loud to you but didn't bug me."

She stood an ear up fully. "That's because I have these big things," she motioned to it, "You've but small ones."

"I was also right by it, but that's another argument for another time. That did remind me of something, though."

"Oh, did it, now? You're good at avoiding arguments," she said playfully, grinning.

"I've had plenty of practice, believe me you. There's a little pocket on the bottom left side of the pack. Open it, there's a pair of headph... You wouldn't know what headphones are, would you? Uhh... There's only three things in that pouch. One's a folded up canvas tarp, the other's a pair of binoculars... You don't know what those are, either, do you?"

Michaela stared at him blankly. What did he want her to do?

"There's two things in there you don't recognize. Give me both of them," he finally said.

She giggled, opened the pocket and grabbed them, handing them to him. He looked at them for a second and handed her one of them with the words, "Put these back in the pack." She did so. He stopped walking, saying, "C'mere." She walked a little closer to him, facing him. He used one hand to lay her ears down. "Next time I have to fire my gun, put these on." He took the 'headphones,' two large circles attached by a band that looped over them, and pushed them down the sides of her head, down until they covered most of her ears. She could hear her heartbeat, but, she suddenly realized, she couldn't hear anything around her anywhere near as good.

She smiled, _so he was thinking of me, too, huh? _"Thank you. You've got no idea what it means." She paused and hugged him, hoping he'd take it. He did, but she noticed that his eyes were closed. "Your eyes are closed," she said.

He chuckled, "I didn't want you to lick me in the eye again."

She licked him on the cheek, "That better?"

"Much. C'mon, we'll only go until we get to a good place to camp today," he said, waving her on.

"Why?" She said as she took the silly headphones off and put them in one of the pockets of the jacket Curt had lent her.

"For one, I'm tired. For two, it may be difficult to find a proper place to camp with this tent _and _a good place to bathe."

"Bathe?"

"Yousmell like a dog. Ismell like a sweaty human."

She laughed, "Fair enough," and picked up the pace.

"In a hurry, are we? You're walking about as fast as I usually do," he said, matching her pace.

Michaela started walking faster.

"What's the rush? I'm an old man!" he called after her, though she noted that he was hurrying up, too. She giggled and started running. "Oh, now that ain't even fair," he muttered.

What was that funny word he always used? Michaela grinned, "Y'all ain't soft where you come from, are y'all?"

"Alright, you asked for it!" he yelled and took off running. She ran ahead of him. She looked behind her and realized that he _could _keep up with her. Actually, not only could he keep up with her, he could _outrun_ her. She ran as fast as she could, panting heavily, her thighs burning, but there he was, right on her tail (literally, he grabbed it playfully). He picked her up and suspended her over his shoulders. She looked at him, shaking her head. How'd he do that? She noticed that he was still running.

"Gosh, we're worse than an old married couple," she muttered.

"That a good thing or a bad thing?" he asked, looking to his left, where her head hung.

She rolled her eyes. "If you'll let me down, it'll be a good thing." He stopped and put her down with him now breathing heavily. She could hear his heartbeat from a few feet away, still strong and clear. She smiled. "Definitely a good thing." She leaned up to kiss him, in the human manner this time.

He rapidly turned around, "Oh, look, this'll make a good campsite."

She let out a growl of anger. "Now it's a bad thing!" she called after him. He pretended to ignore her, but she saw his smile widen. She breathed a sigh, rolled her eyes and started walking.

He sat the pack down and pulled a sack out of it. "Tent," he explained. "There's a small creek over there, you can bathe there," he said and tossed her a bar of soap and a towel. "The merchant said that both humans and Keidran can use that kind," he said and motioned to the soap bar, "Not supposed to dry your fur."

She shrugged and started walking toward the creek. Maybe it would work. She couldn't remember the last time she'd bathed with real soap; usually, master (good riddance!) gave her water with nowhere near enough soap dissolved in it. He only did that much when she had fleas. Maybe that _was_ why she liked Curt so much. Maybe she just _liked _him, too. Heck, she really didn't know. She shrugged, now was no time to worry about it. She removed the jacket Curt had given her and sat it and the towel on the top of the bank of the creek. She climbed down the three feet bank and into the water, only about three and a half feet deep, but crystal clear.

* * *

Curt sighed, wiping sweat from his brow. The tents in this place were old ones, not like the ones with collapsible poles and Gortex-coated rainflies that Curt could've set up with a blindfold. He hadn't set up a tent even remotely like the canvas and wood monster since his days in Boy Scouts. He had to remember his knots, that was for darn sure. He hounded the last stake into the ground, making sure the line was taunt as he did so. He let out another sigh, this time a sigh of relief. He undid his right and then left boots; he hadn't taken them off in a little less than two days. His socks were soaked with sweat and when he removed them he wasn't surprised to find blisters and calluses. _You've violated every rule of hygiene and personal maintenance you've ever learned, you dolt! _he thought. Had being with a new pretty girl distracted him that much? _No, _he decided, _It was the stress. I didn't even think of it. At least this place seems to be getting better. _He smiled. Michaela was the reason and he knew it, but he didn't mind. She was how much younger than him and he didn't mind? Now that thought scared him, until he realized that, without cellular regenerative therapy and the other technology that had kept him alive and young back home, he'd probably have a lifespan similar to Michaela's. He grimaced. That was a good thought and a bad one wrapped all together. He shrugged. Death was as much a part of life as life itself was.

He heard Michaela shake herself off down at the creek. He smiled. He couldn't believe how much she acted like a dog while still being a human in basically every other way. He had an even harder time believing how much he actually liked that. Curt had always been a dog person, he'd kept many good hunting dogs since he was a boy. But she wasn't a dog, was she? No, she was a Fox. A _Fox Keidran,_ she'd called herself. He shrugged. He still liked her just fine.

She walked up the bank and dried off with the towel. "Your turn," she said, jerking a thumb at the creek. "The soap is on a rock. It works, by the way."

"Got it, thanks," he said, grabbed a change of clothes, his bath kit, a fresh towel, and walked down to the creek. Once down the bank, he removed his dirty clothes, reeking with sweat, grabbed the wash cloth from his bath kit, and cleaned himself. The water was a little shallow for the task, but he'd managed with less in Korea. The soap was actually good stuff and, along with the pack, map and hairbrush for Michaela, was one of the few things he hadn't been stiffed on in the town. He wished that he'd of included soap in his bath kit, but he figured that the base in China would have some. He shrugged. He had no way of preparing for the world he'd landed in. He chuckled to himself when he realized that he'd brought laundry detergent in his duffel bag. _Laundry detergent, but no soap. Nice going, Curtis._ He sighed. He'd always joked that the job was driving him crazy. He suddenly realized how right he may have been. _Or maybe it was the death of my whole family,_ he thought. That was probably a more accurate assessment; he'd been obsessed with revenge when he packed his bag, why else would he've brought his long gun? There was no need for it. He sighed again, still washing himself. He couldn't help the past, but was he ever glad that he'd brought the rifle now. His pistol would have limited rounds and would leave shell casings. The long gun didn't produce casings, which had helped with escaping after killing Michaela's master; he hadn't needed to police the brass.

He finished washing, dried off, and put his clothes on. Suddenly, he realized that he'd forgotten to get a shirt or a jacket. He shrugged. He had his pants on. He walked over to the new pack and dug around for a shirt. He realized that they were still in his duffel bag, which he'd never finished unpacking thanks to having to run. He pulled the duffel bag out of the framed pack, unwadded it and pulled an olive drab T-shirt out. Michaela walked over, brushing her hair down. It looked pretty when she combed it down. Heck, _she _was pretty, period. _What are you thinking, Curt?_ He asked himself. He shrugged imperceptibly to himself, deciding not to fight it and to enjoy it while he still could. "I've never seen a human shirtless," she said.

"I'm not the best example for my kind," he muttered.

"Why not?"

"I'm old, Michaela, I'm old."

"So y'all" -she still used the word awkwardly, but he liked it when she did- "have some fur on you, do you?" she said, motioning to his chest hair.

"I wouldn't call it fur," he said. "Too coarse."

She smiled, rubbing it, which felt weird, "Close enough."

"Alright, alright, settle down and let me get dressed," he said, looking down at her small frame.

"Fine," she said, rolled her eyes, and walked off, still brushing her fur. Curt walked over to the bank and grabbed the deodorant and body spray out of his bath kit. He applied both and put the T-shirt on. He cleaned up the mess around the creek, re-packing everything. Michaela walked over, sniffing as she did so. "That spicy smell is back! It's really strong now!"

Curt looked at her. "Spicy smell? Oh, my body spray!"

"I like that! It smells so good. It's the scent I associate with you."

He smiled, raising an eyebrow. "Well, I'm glad you like it, then."

A few hours later, they sat on a log in front of the fire, Michaela leaning her head on his shoulder, just like the previous night. It was quiet except for the popping and crackling of the fire. Michaela looked up at him and quietly asked, "What did you do? Before you came here, I mean."

"I was a general."

"A general? I don't know much about the military, but I know that a general is powerful.

Yeah, I was. I lead an air command; like a large army in the air."

"Dragons?"

"No, you wouldn't get it if I explained. There are mechanical vehicles (think of it like a horse carriage) that fly, driven by humans where I come from. I commanded many hundreds of them. Before I commanded them, I was a pilot; I flew those flying machines. Before that, I was what they called 'pararescue.' If a pilot was shot down or stranded, it was my job to go rescue them. There were many times I had to do that in the middle of enemy territory."

"Sounds dangerous."

"Yeah, it was. At first, I would have to use a special one of those flying machines—we called it a helicopter—to go in where the pilots were. Then, we invented this thing we called a 'portal.' You just walked through it and it would take you anywhere on earth. I would come out five feet from the pilot I needed to rescue and then we'd jump back through the portal. That made it much less dangerous." Curt paused. "It wasn't until I went back through it thirty something years later that it messed up and sent me here."

"That's what put you here? The portal?"

"Yeah, it wasn't supposed to, but I'll be darned if I ain't glad that it did."

She smiled. "Me, too." One of her ears rotated towards the forest rapidly. She whispered, "I hear something. Several things. They can't be anything but people."

"Put the headphones on. This will probably get ugly."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3, as promised.

Sorry it took so long, this chapter had two really hard to write sequences, namely the action and... well, the first part of the chapter in Michaela's perspective; I won't give it away.

* * *

Curt Ducked behind the log he and Michaela had been sitting on. He pulled a pair of low-profile infrared night-vision goggles out of a uniform pocket, turned them on and put them on. Michaela was right beside him, her small fame fitting behind the log much better than his larger one. "Where were they, about?" he asked in a whisper.

Her ears stood straight up, scanning for any more noise. "I can't hear them anymore, but they were off there somewhere," she said in the same tone, indicating a range of ground in front of the log.

Curt cursed in German; he'd found it a useful language for that. "You see how many?"

She shook her head.

He let out a few more curses in German. _Not good. Not good, _he thought as he reached down and flipped his rifle's safety off. "Put those headphones on for the last time." He leaned his head up above the log, revealing as little of it as he could. He saw one of the attackers and ducked his head back down. Right as he did so, he saw an arrow streak over him, right where his head had been. It landed about a yard away from him.

Someone screamed something in an odd language from the woods. "It's Keidran," Michaela said.

"Translate."

"'You missed, you fool!'"

"Oh. I could've told you that," he muttered.

Michaela stretched and grabbed the arrow, pulling it from the ground. She sniffed it. "Poisoned. One drop of it in your blood and you can count yourself dead."

"Wonderful. Just wonderful," Curt muttered. _Think man, think!_ He stuck the butt of his rifle up above the log. An arrow whizzed out and struck it. Curt popped out from behind the log, snapping the rifle into its proper position. He aimed and fired three times before ducking back behind the log.

He heard whoever was out to kill him scream in pain, then in words incomprehensible to him. "I'm hit twice. I'm out of here!" Michaela translated.

"One down, I wonder how many to go," Curt muttered. He thought again. He raised his voice, "Whoever you are, let us make a deal, man to man!"

"We are no men," came the snarling reply.

"Warrior to warrior, then!"

"What deal do you want to make then, human?"

"Leave the girl out of this. She's innocent."

"There are no innocents," it said and switched tongues.

"He has the advantage at long-range. Move in," Michaela provided.

Curt let out vile curses in every language he knew, which accounted for several. He looked around, scanning the woods with his rifle. He saw one of the hostiles, and could see its form, definitely Keidran, and it looked like a wolf. It was off to his left and its hands started to glow.

"_Verdammt!" _Curt yelled, _That can't be good, _he continued in his thoughts.

The wolf slashed with its left hand, throwing the glow at the log. Curt grabbed Michaela and jumped out of the way. The log was smacked by the magic, flying off into the forest on the other side of the campsite. The wolf flung the glow from its other hand. That time, both Michaela and Curt rolled out of the way at the same time. A fountain of dirt erupted where the light struck. Curt squeezed off four rounds, having to be careful not to snap the trigger. It'd been a good many years since he'd fought combat like that in which he was engaged and his discipline was slipping. The form of his enemy dropped.

"What do you want from us?" Curt screamed.

"Nothing from you. We want the girl!"

"Why?" Curt called, trying to hone in on the voice of the wolf.

"An old debt. Give her up, we'll let you go. Why do you protect your slave so?"

"I'm not his slave!" Michaela yelled.

"Go on believing what you want, girl! All humans want to do is kill and enslave!" Curt couldn't see the one speaking, clearly the leader of the group.

"This one is different!" She yelled back.

"Listen, you want her, you'll have to get past me first."

Two Wolf Keidran appeared in front of him with a flash. The goggles blocked it, preventing the light from ruining his vision. He pressed the button on the rifle that made the bayonet fold out. He never thought he'd need it. "That won't be hard," the lead wolf cackled.

_There's no way I can hold off the both of them. What have you gotten yourself into, Curt?_

The wolves charged, holding swords over their heads. Curt jerked the knife out of his boot with his right hand, holding it backhanded. He used it to block the sword from the Keidran on the right and caught the leader's between the barrel and bayonet of his rifle. He twisted the pistol grip of the rifle, flipping the sword out of the senior wolf's hand. Curt bent back and kicked the other in the chest, only slightly knocking him back.

The wolf in charge pulled a smaller sword out of his robes and looked at the other, "this one fights honorably. I'll take care of him. You get the girl."

"No! Leave her alone until you've fought me."

The wolf snarled, "Very well. This battle can only end one way. Why do you fight, human? You know you will lose."

"Because I made a promise. I _never_ give up on my word. My promises die only when I do."

"Honorable. Foolish, but honorable," the gray form said as it stuck at him with its smaller sword. Curt caught it in the same manner as he had the last blow. The wolf pushed the sword down, sliding it out of the gun and down—where it sliced through Curt's arm. The arm went limp, pouring blood. Curt did the best roundhouse kick he could manage and used the distraction to grab the wolf's first sword, dropping his knife. The handle of the sword was odd, made for a hand very much different than his. He made a heavy swing at the Keidran with it nonetheless. The wolf blocked it with ease. Curt used the thing's own tactic against it, sliding his blade down the side of its. The wolf made a kick at Curt in response. Curt let the blow push him back. He landed on the ground, back first.

The wolf walked toward him slowly. Curt reached down with his remaining arm, grabbing his sidearm. "Checkmate," he said. The Keidran paused. "Go. Leave now, I don't want to kill you," Curt said.

The wolf cackled. Curt realized that his assailant didn't know the power of the gun. "What are you go-"

Curt fired. A single casing leapt from the little gun. The wolf's head bent back in a spray of blood and its body collapsed. The other wolf, the one ordered to hang back, grabbed Michaela and went running off into the night. Curt dropped the pistol and grabbed his long gun. He rolled over, resting the gun on the ground. Curt took a deep breath in, sighting the wolf's gut, the highest target on it he could aim for with only one hand and the gun's bipod. He fired, the gun punching into his collar bone. The wolf fell. Getting hit in the gut was a hard, hard way to die. _Then again, so is dying of blood loss._

He rolled over on his back, letting the rifle fall on its side as he watched Michaela get up and come running towards him. "Are you alright?"

"Guess," he said and motioned to his arm. "This one's probably lethal." She started to say something, but he cut her off. "There are two things I want to do before I die. One: I want to tell you that you remind me of my wife. The second thing has no words," he said, gently grabbing the back of her head and pressing her lips to his in a kiss. She accepted it, her tense form loosening for the half second it lasted.

She looked at him with a mixed expression when they broke apart. "That was very nice and I'm surprised in a very good way and I hate to burst your bubble, but... Uh... I got a manna crystal off that guy. I can heal you. You're gonna be just fine."

"Really? All that for nothing?" Curt muttered. "Now I feel like a complete idiot."

"I could just let you die."

"Work your magic then," he muttered, not realizing how literally she would be working magic.

She took his arm in her right hand, a blue crystal in her left. He watched the crystal dissolve and her left palm begin to glow. "It's pretty bad, but I can heal it. It'll be a while before you'll have full use of the arm, though." She used her right hand, under his arm, to close the wound as she ran the palm of her left along his arm. Pain shot through Curt from the arm, but he gritted his teeth and took the pain. She finished, the would nicely closed up. "I'll have to do it a few more times to try and get the tendons to heal up, but that'll have to wait. It's dangerous to heal too much at once. Overworks both the healer and the one being healed. You'll have to take it easy for a while, too. You've lost a lot of blood; I can't replace it."

Curt nodded. "It would've taken longer to do that back home, so I ain't gonna complain," he said as he slowly put the infrared goggles back in their pocket.

Michaela shrugged; she didn't care about Curt's home, he guessed. What did it matter to her? It had never existed, as far as she was concerned. Curt halfway shrugged himself; perhaps he lived in the past too much. "So, what now?" She asked.

"We can either move the bodies or set up camp somewhere else. They'll start to stink soon, otherwise I'd tell you that you'd crawl in that tent and we'd both sleep good."

One of Michaela's ears shot up, facing the forest to the side opposing where the Keidran had came from. "Human, it's clearly wearing shoes. Running towards us; must've heard the shots."

Curt grabbed his sidearm off the ground beside him anyhow. _Better safe than sorry, _he thought. Sure enough, a human, a farmer by the looks of him, came running out of the woods holding a lantern in front of him with a sword that had been clearly been hastily strapped to his waist. Curt holstered the sidearm. "What happened? I heard som…" the man started, but dropped off, apparently seeing the bodies of the Keidran. "We've got an extra bed and a cage. Come with me."

"That's fine, but she won't be staying in a cage," Curt said, motioning for Michaela to hand him the pack as they got up and started after the man.

The man raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Well, come on anyhow. I don't reckon the wife'll fuss about the fur too much after she hears what the two of you just went through."

"I'm not shedding," Michaela said helpfully and looked to Curt, "and don't you _dare_ tell me that I'm taking that bed."

The man laughed. "I take it you two aren't exactly slave and master?"

"You said you were married, son?"

"Yeah."

"Same kind of slavery," Curt said, grinning devilishly, earning him a fit of laughter from the man and a sharp elbow in the ribs from Michaela.

They slowly walked to the man's home, a little log cabin at the edge of the woods surrounded by pastures and fields. He led them to the back door, calling to his wife as he opened it, "Honey, we've got guests. Make sure the guest room's ready and I'll help you make them some food."

"No, we've got our own food," Curt said.

"You'll eat our food or you'll leave the house," the man's wife said firmly.

Curt shook his head. "Thank you."

"You just get to the bedroom, the both of you, it's at the end of that hall," the man said and explained why Michaela was coming into the house to his wife. She nodded and they both went to the kitchen.

Curt and Michaela made their slow way to the bedroom. It was empty of everything save a bed, a vanity with a mirror and a nightstand with an oil lamp resting on it. He dropped the pack to the floor and slowly removed his jacket. Michaela took hers off, too. He sat on the edge of his bed and removed his boots and utility belt. He reached into the one pocket his shirt had. In it were two silver rings. He pulled them out, fighting tears. "Those are beautiful," Michaela said, "Did you pick them out?" She sat down on the bed beside him.

"Yeah. We were going to renew our vows the day of the attack," he said, the tears sliding silently down his cheeks despite his best efforts. "I don't guess y'all have much of a marriage ritual here," he muttered.

"Sort of. None for a pair like us, if that's what you mean. I don't know what any marriage is like, anyhow. Not something slaves talk about, if you know what I mean."

"I guess not," he said, handing her the ring with diamonds arranged on it. "Where I come from, there are two rings involving marriage. That one's called an engagement ring, meaning that you're going to get married soon. Only the girl gets one of those. The other one," he said, motioning to the one perched on his finger, "is the actual wedding band, both partners get one of those. It means that you're married."

"Why do you still wear it, then?"

"Good question," he muttered, "maybe because I couldn't let go. Maybe because I was married to revenge. It was all I thought about after it, you know." He shook his head and removed the band.

"But wait, how do they know they want to be married?"

"You never do, not really. Never really sure if you want to stay married, either. That's probably the same everywhere, though."

She nodded, twirling the ring in her hand. "Does the man give her the engagement ring?"

"Yeah."

She gasped and looked at him. "Wait, does that…"

He broke out laughing. "No, you're handing that back."

She blushed, barely visible through her fur and in the skimp lighting of the room's single lamp.

"Maybe someday. But, trust me; being married is nothing to take lightly."

"Then why do you bother with it? I know that Keidran rarely do, except for royalty, where the marriages are arranged."

"Because it creates a bond like nothing else can, that duty and commitment. And, well, this is awkward, but, where I come from, it's wrong to have sex outside of marriage."

"Really? Oh…" She said, sounding thoroughly disappointed, which made Curt wonder. "Why?"

"God mandated it," he said, holding the cross around his neck that meant nothing to her. "It keeps purity and prevents the spread of… certain diseases. I never knew exactly why, but I know that God knows a whole lot better than I do."

Michaela started to say something, but the farmer's wife burst through the door with a tray full of food and drink for the both of them. "Both of you enjoy, now. And you," she motioned to Curt, "You get some rest, that looks bad."

Curt nodded, murmured his thanks as she walked out and ate slowly, thinking. He had a lot to think about, after all. So many things had gone by... He'd lived an exciting life, he'd thought, but he was starting to think that the last two days had been more eventful than most of his life. He'd rescued a damsel in distress, fought the unjust law, committed murder, gotten into a fight complete with magic, wolves and swords (and won it!) and, he realized, he'd fallen in love— _did I really just think that? No sense lying to myself, I don't suppose_. If that didn't make for exciting days, Curt didn't know what would.

They both finished their food and drink. Michaela glared at him, "alright, you need to get some rest. You've lost a lot of blood. It's been a heck of a day, hasn't it?"

"I was just thinking that. Yeah, I guess I should get some rest, but I'll tell you one thing, I'll be darned if I let a woman sleep on the floor when I've got a bed."

"Never planned on it," she said and crawled to the foot of the bed on the side opposing him. She curled up as tightly as she could and rolled her head out where Curt could see her. "Happy?"

"Well, is that very comfortable for you? It doesn't look like it."

She glared at him. "I'll be fine."

"This is a big bed. You'll get under these covers. I know it'll be a whole lot more comfortable for you, warmer, too; this house looks pretty drafty." She looked at him blankly, clearly not sure what to do. "How badly do you want me to sleep on the floor?"

She let out a growl of discontent as she complied.

He smiled. "Are _you_ happy? That's the real question."

"Don't make me answer that."

He rolled his eyes. "You're a terrible liar, you know."

She didn't reply.

Curt chuckled, shaking his head. He took off his shirt, letting it fall to the floor, while setting the three rings in its pocket and his dogtags on the nightstand. He reached over, cut the lamp out and crawled under the covers. He was asleep in short order.

* * *

Michaela looked over at Curt. He laid face up, arms crossed, very still. He said that he slept like that, so Michaela hadn't been sure that he was asleep until he started snoring. She discovered that, when he did snore, he _snored._ She would've been much more upset about it had she not known that she wouldn't be able to sleep anyhow; she was too close to Curt, _in the same bed as him, _she reminded herself. She remembered when he'd said how lucky he thought he was. She thought that to be quite backwards; she was the lucky one. There was only one man on the planet that seemed to care about her and she'd literally run right into him. If that wasn't luck, what was? Perhaps that that man seemed to like her? _That counts,_ she supposed.

Then how was he the lucky one? _Because I love him like a dog, at least that's what he said. Why'd you have to go liking a human, Michaela? You should've known that he'd be contradictory and confusing. But he's stuck to his word, even until what he thought was death. If that's not commitment, what is?_ She had no good answer for herself. She laid there, unmoving, for a great while. _Why can't I sleep? I should be sleeping better than I ever have. Maybe if I— No! But what will it hurt? _She slowly moved over towards Curt. Finally, she was close enough that her fur almost touched his bear skin. She could smell his scent strongly. Oh, how she loved that spice! He was very warm and, while she hadn't noticed it, the room was starting to get colder. She moved just a bit...

He stopped snoring and opened an eye. She faked sleep. "I'm a very light sleeper, you know. And, good try, but you're not asleep." He rolled over on his stomach, putting his left arm out above the covers with the wound facing upwards. "It's sore and bugging me," he explained as he turned his head to face her. "You must not be able to sleep."

"No."

He grimaced. "Was I snoring?"

"Yeah... Loud..."

"I'm sorry," he muttered.

"It's fine. Not your fault."

He muffled a laugh.

"What?" she asked.

"You either need to get closer or move away."

"Why?"

"Your fur's just barely brushing against me and it tickles."

"Oh," she muttered and prepared to move away from him. She thought for a second, reckoning that her decision would make a difference on events between the two of them for a long time. But how would they be influenced if she moved closer? _Better safe than sorry, _she thought and moved away a little. He shrugged, almost like he'd expected her to move closer. She sighed tiredly.

She opened her eyes, not even remembering falling asleep. Her eyes opened further very rapidly when she realized that, in their sleep, she and Curt had moved together. He was so warm against her fur. She took a deep breath in, taking in that wonderful scent, trying to enjoy the moment. The world giving her no rest, Curt soon woke up. "You have a whole lot more fur that I thought you did," he muttered sleepily. Again, he just took their unconscious embrace in stride.

"Is it bugging you?" she asked, worried that the answer would be yes.

"No, actually, it's very warm. Don't you dare move away. It's cold in here..."

"Don't we need to get up though?"

"Since you can't see the window, I'll go ahead and tell you that the sun hasn't risen yet. Go back to sleep if you can."

She shifted around a bit and tried to, very hard. Sleep wouldn't come to her, but for once, she didn't mind. She couldn't believe that Curt hadn't moved away from her the instant he'd woken up. She enjoyed the moment, lost in thought and warmth of a kind she'd never felt. He had said that she reminded him of his wife, but what did that count for? _Perhaps more than I realize. He said that marriage is a commitment and a bond like no other. _Had he put her in that same kind of bond, associated her with the old one? She could only hope so.

It seemed like forever passed in but a second before Curt opened his eyes again. He looked out, past her and no doubt to the window, and let out a visible sigh. "Time to get up."

Michaela groaned. "Do we have to?"

"We need to get up before the farmer and his wife do," he replied quietly.

"What does it matter?"

"Just imagine if they saw us like this. What do you think they'd think?"

She sighed. It made sense. "Fine. Just a bit longer."

"No, we need to get up _now. _My wife played that game. I'll not fall for it."

Michaela grumbled as she got up. "Your problem is that you know us too well," she mumbled.

"'Us' being?"

"Women."

Curt let out a laugh that he stifled to prevent waking the farmer and his wife. "I wouldn't call that a bad thing."

"I would."

"It always helps to know the enemy, that's all I got to say."

She rolled her eyes and shoved him back into to the bed quietly. In any other context, it would have seemed se... _You really shouldn't think about that kind of thing when you're not in heat! _Speaking of, when was she due to come into heat? _Crap. Should I tell Curt? No, let's keep this on a need-to-know basis._ She pushed the realization that he'd need to know soon enough out of her mind as she grabbed the jacket Curt had given her. It still smelled like that soap he used. She loved that smell. She started to put on the jacket, but paused. She needed to take care of her hair, which was no doubt the same tangled mess it had been when she was still a slave. She grabbed the brush Curt had given her out of a jacket pocket and walked over to the little desk with a mirror (she couldn't remember what humans called them) the room boasted and got to work. _I wish I could just shave it off like Curt, but I doubt that'd look too good... _She sighed and kept brushing.

Through the mirror, she watched him put on that belt he wore, threading each little item that belonged on it through as he fitted it. It seemed like more trouble than it was worth, but that depended on what each little black pouch contained. She wondered what all he had. _Why not just ask him, Michaela? Why do you have such trouble asking him questions? _She remembered when she'd had to force herself to ask him what his name was. She'd heard that having trouble talking to somebody was a sign of liking them. Where had she heard that, anyhow? There was no telling; with all the slaves that went in and out as part of her -former- master's business, she'd been able to find out more than most slaves; no one slave knew much, but when you gleamed the information of many slaves, you could always learn something new.

_So ask then, stop living in that past you hate so much. _She turned around and motioned to the little things he attached to the belt and asked,"What is all that stuff, anyway?"

"Huh? Oh, well, there's a lot of different stuff. I've got knifes, ammunition for my sidearm, spare parts for the long gun, maps of where I was supposed to go (and now some of here), just miscellaneous stuff."

"Ammunition?" she asked as she made her way to the bed.

"Right," he muttered and pulled the smaller black thing _(Pistol, pistol, Michaela. Call it what it is.)_ out of its holster and pressed a button on the side of it with his thumb. A large black rectangle dropped out the bottom of it. He grabbed the rectangle and showed her the shiny cylinders in the top of it. "This whole thing is called a 'magazine' or a 'clip.' These," he said and pushed one of the cylinders out of the clip with his thumb, "are 'rounds,' the actual ammunition (we just call it 'ammo'). The front of it is called a 'bullet.' It's what's actually fired out of the gun. The back part is the 'shell' or 'casing.' It holds the powder, which creates the gas that pushes the bullet out of the gun..." He stopped. "I've totally, lost you, haven't I?"

"Yeah," she said, her ears drooping a bit, feeling stupid.

"Don't feel bad, it ain't your fault. There's about two and a half millenniums of technological advancements between this and the sword you're used to seeing."

"I never even thought about that... That's why stuff of yours looks like magic to me, isn't it?" Her ears perked up. She'd figured it out! Why she was counting such a small victory so was beyond her, but she didn't care. She suddenly realized that she was liking him across the cheek while hugging him. She jumped back and covered her mouth. "Geez! I get excited too easy!" she exclaimed.

Curt was doing all he could do not to break out laughing. "You remind me of someone other than my wife, you know?"

"Who is that?" she asked, uncovering her mouth and starting to wonder, while noting that he didn't mind her impulse, A_ctually, _she realized, _I think he liked it._

"My German Shepherd. That's the way he was. He got all excited and happy over nothing. I loved it, I always thought that people could learn from that. I don't suppose my people ever did. There's still hope for these people."

Michaela didn't know what a German Shepherd was, but she knew it was some kind of pet and decided to go with that. Maybe she was learning Curt's adaptability. She hoped so. "What do you mean, that your people never did?"

"The weapons that killed my wife and kids? They also destroyed the planet. Only people underground, in bunkers— think of them like underground fortresses— survived. I just happened to be lucky; I was in a bunker when they hit."

"Your whole world?"

He shut his eyes tightly, grimacing, painful memories and tears surfacing. "Yeah. The whole world... Can you imagine? Your whole world, up like one giant ember? The waste, the fools, the idiots! How could they not know what they were doing?" His voice was as raised as he dared make it. He calmed, "By the time they realized what they'd done, it was too late. The whole world was gone then. They said that we had enough supplies to wait, to wait until the world fixed itself, then we could come out. I don't know if they'll ever be'ble to."

One of her ears shot up of itself. She heard covers rustle, feet hit the floor. "They're up," she muttered. Curt hastily finished getting dressed. Michaela put the jacket he'd given her on and pocketed the hairbrush. She took in a nose full of the jacket's scent. Curt started to get up.

"Hold on," she said, "I need to heal you some more."

He sighed and grumbled a bit, but sat down and offered her his wounded arm. A massive scar ran down most of its length.

She pulled a crystal out of the jacket's top right pocket, letting it dissolve in her hand, pulling its energy into her and letting it flow to her left palm and fingers. She carefully moved down his arm, pulling things back where they belonged with little tendrils of energy and stimulating his body's immune system, making it both heal and fight off infection. She looked to his face for a second. The healing was very painful, making the body work harder and more precisely than it was ever supposed to, but at the same time being more precise, accurate and potent than it could ever be on its own. However, by the look on Curt's face, he was rather bored, not in pain. What _had_ he gone through? What all dangerous things had he done? What all pain— mental as well as physical— had he endured in his many years? She discovered that she'd love to know. Maybe she'd find out. She hoped so. _I thought that I didn't want to know. _She paused. _You do now, you lovebird. _She sighed as she put one last tendon in place and ended the spell.

On of the two who's house Curt and Michaela stayed in knocked on the door right as she finished. "C'mon in," Curt called.

The man cracked the door and stuck his head in. "I'm sure you want to come with me to clean your campsite up and report the bodies to the Templar?"

"Yeah," he muttered and stood up.

The farmer turned to Michaela. "You can help my wife around the house if you want."

"I'd rather come with y'all," she said, proud of how seamlessly she'd used 'yall.'

He chuckled. "Wild-spirited, ain't she?" he asked, looking at Curt.

"You've got no idea."

The farmer swung the door open and waved them on, "C'mon, if we hurry, we can get back by the time she's got breakfast ready." He grinned. "Normally, I'd have to help her. Good to have a little distraction."

Curt laughed as he dug for his old bag in the new one with a frame. He pulled it out, "I can throw anything I need to carry in here."

The man nodded and lead them out the back door.

After a few minutes, they came on the clearing where they'd camped. Michaela's nose wrinkled from the stench of the bodies, terrible in every way. The iron stench of blood, the odd metallic smell Curt's guns made, the musty smell of burst bowels and decaying flesh all mixed in the air. She fought the urge to vomit as they got closer.

Curt looked over at her and suppressed a laugh, "I didn't think that you could turn green. Shows what I know." He tossed her his old bag, "Here, take my duffel bag. Pick up anything of ours and throw it in there." He turned to the farmer, "Shouldn't we leave the bodies in their place for the Templar to investigate?"

"Good point. Yeah, both of you just get your stuff cleaned up and I'll head to the closest town to report it. You can follow me, I'm sure."

Curt nodded, "If not, I've got a map."

The farmer disappeared into the brush with a shrug.

"C'mon, let's hurry so we can get out of here. Get all of those crystals you can minus one on each body. I know it's disgusting, but I take it you need those for magic?"

"Yeah. I don't look forward to this," she mumbled.

"Just thank your God or gods that you haven't had to do some of the things I've had to and get it over with," he said as he stooped and picked up a... what had he called the things? A 'shell.' That's what he'd picked up. He pocketed it and got to work taking the tent down. She got to her own work, going around to each of the bodies and collecting manna crystals off of them. When she was finished, she had sixteen crystals, enough to do her for some time.

He finished cleaning up everything of theirs and went around to the bodies himself until he found the leader of the wolves. He pulled the longsword out of its hands and turned it around, stabbing it in the ground beside him. "You were a worthy opponent, lost soul," he mumbled and bowed his head in silence. It was a sentiment she'd seen, but never known. He looked to her, "C'mon, I want to be out of here by the time the Templar show up. I get a bad feeling about those guys."

Michaela nodded and swallowed the lump in her throat. He had no idea.

Curt took out one of his maps and examined it as they walked south. "Why were you headed south, again?"

"It leads to the coast. The only way to fox territory is either through wolf or by boat. With the war on, I think it's reasonable to say that it's smarter to go by boat."

"Just how'd you plan on getting on a boat as a runaway?"

"I don't know," she said, feeling her ears droop. "I figured that I'd get to that when I got to that."

He shrugged. "Don't matter now, though, does it?"

Her ears perked up and she felt her tail wag. "It doesn't," she muttered and set her head on his shoulder as they walked.

She felt a slight pause in his step. "Wait... Did you say war?"

"I thou... You wouldn't know, would you? The wolves killed the Human King and sparked a war. It's turned into a siege, wearing on for years. Neither of them can get past the mountains."

Curt looked off distantly. "You got any spells that can make people believe anything I say?"

"Yeah, my master made me use it to help convince people to buy his 'products.' As long as I'm with you, people will believe anything you say as long as you want them to, and it only uses two crystals for about a month. It's a good one when used properly; master didn't make it..."

Curt nodded. "We're changing course. I'll get you home soon."


	4. Chapter 4

Here's chapter four. It's a bit longer than average, but it should read about the same length; it's mostly dialogue. There are also several song references. Catch them all and point them out in a comment and you win 10,000 internets.  
An interesting note is that I didn't write this chapter on my own, I wrote it with a good friend of mine who y'all know as | White Raven |. The characters from this story and his "Who I Am" meet in this chapter. You can read his side of this story in his chapter four.  
Here's a note from Raven:_ "Um...hi, I guess. Even on the Internet, I'm socially awkward, so...yeah. F6FFreak and I collaborated on this chapter, and this is what came about. Collaborating was his idea, and he's a genius for it. My story's version is on my page, so...yeah. Enjoy reading!"_  
This chapter is awesome thanks to our collaborative efforts, and we'll be collaborating a bit for the start of our chapter fives.

Like he said, enjoy.

* * *

"Any room with two beds will suit me just fine," Curt told the innkeeper tiredly.

The man returned him an odd glance. "It'd be cheaper with a cage in the basement and only one bed."

"Is that so? I think I'll be leaving, then," Curt replied flatly and began to turn around.

"Wait, stop, I'll give you our discount for military and Templar personnel. You sure look the part," the man behind the counter relinquished.

"That's more like it," Curt muttered as he took the key and paid the man.

He and Michaela walked up the stairs and to their room. Michaela shed the jacket he'd given her as soon as they were in the room. Curt chuckled and removed his jacket and officer's cap, placing them both on a coat rack by the door. He looked around. "Dang. They even have bathrooms for each suite here. I didn't expect that from a medieval inn.

"I told you this was an expensive one," Michaela muttered. "You should've gone to a cheaper inn. You can't have that much money left."

"They gave me 20 pounds of gold coins when I left for China and told me that it wasn't much; thanks to out of control inflation (imagine that, inflation of _gold), _nothing was worth much. Here though, 20 pounds of gold'll do me for three years if I'm careless. That's why I left a whole gold piece on the bed in that farmer's house," he explained. Judging by the look she gave him, Michaela hadn't even known that he'd left a coin at that house.

Michaela sat on one of the beds and rubbed her paws. They'd covered more ground that day than they had in any day before, Curt guessed about fifteen miles. "We aren't walking that far again tomorrow, are we," she said flatly. It wasn't a question.

He sat down on the other bed and removed his boots and socks, looking at his callused and blistered feet. Michaela had probably come off better in that department than he had. "Agreed," he muttered. _I wonder if... No, she has very few of those crystal things. I won't waste them on my bloody feet. _It took him a second to realize that his feet were actually bloody, but he again dismissed the thought of allowing Michaela to heal him.

"They've got baths out back," Curt said. "We could both use one, I'm sure."

Michaela made a sigh of agreement and stood up, grabbing a towel and hotel provided bar of soap as she walked out the door. Curt broke out laughing once he figured she was out of earshot. _She's got her attitude, alright._ He still missed his wife. He always would and he knew it. _Michaela's too much like her. That's why I'm falling for her, isn't it? _He shook his head. Other than when they were on that hill outside of that first accursed human town they'd come to, he'd kept those feelings bottled up neatly. Michaela had suggested that it may have been one of her master's spells in order to distract them. Curt recalled that he hadn't replied. He didn't want her to know that he didn't think it was a spell. He sighed, grabbed a housecoat, changed into it and headed out for the baths, grabbing a towel and the other bar of soap on his way out.

He walked slowly. When he arrived at the baths, he was more than happy to find himself alone as he removed the robe and stepped into the water. It was warm. He sighed and looked around as he sunk into the water. He wasn't used to public baths, though he'd grown used to group showers in the Air Force. Curt had always been a bit of a history buff and wondered about the place around him. It was in medieval years, but it was more like Rome; there weren't really towns or cities in true medieval times, _Nor, _he added, _were there public baths of any form. _But, it suited him just fine that there were; he most certainly wouldn't have liked being spat out in a feudal world.

Ten minutes later (unusually long for him), he got out of the water, dried off, and went back to the room. Michaela was already on her bed sound asleep. "Geez, better pace myself tomorrow," he mumbled as he got ready for bed himself. He finally crawled under the covers, blowing out the candle on the nightstand. Sleep came very easily for him.

* * *

Curt got up early the next morning. He went out and bought supplies (for a wonder, he wasn't ripped off) for the next couple of days. When he got back to the room, Michaela still slept peacefully. It surprised him, a glance at his watch told him that he'd been gone for well over an hour. _Dang, she must be tired. I wonder if something's wrong. _He packed all the new supplies into his pack. Michaela still slept. He finally let out an exasperated sigh as he quietly walked over to her bed. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder. "C'mon. Good morning," -he almost said, 'beautiful,' as he'd told his wife for thousands of mornings- "Michaela." She startled awake, jumping up at Curt. He thought it odd; she'd woken up so peacefully the previous two mornings. "You alright?" he asked, stopping just short of saying, 'honey.' _I've _got to _quit that, _he chastised himself.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Didn't sleep too good, that's all," she said, rubbing her eyes.

Curt knew that that was a blatant lie, but decided to let her go. "We'll head out in an hour or so. We can get breakfast at a tavern or a pub."

She nodded slowly, not so much sleepily as warily. _Something's not right here, _Curt told himself. If Curt thought something was up, something was. It'd always been that way, anyhow. Did his grip slip with age? _It better not. I need it more than ever now._ Michaela slowly stood up and walked over to the jacked he'd given her, pulling the hairbrush from it. She walked over to the vanity and slowly began brushing herself.

Curt chuckled.

"What?"

"You need coffee," he said, suppressing another laugh.

"No I don't. Trust me, I don't."

Curt figured that her physiology must have made coffee do terrible things to her. He shrugged and walked over to her. "Want some help with that?"

She jerked a bit. "What?"

He shrugged. "Oh, I just used to brush my wife's hair. Nevermind," he said and turned around, beginning to walk to his pack.

"No!" she exclaimed, startling Curt a bit. "Go ahead, then."

He turned around and walked the two steps back over to her, taking the brush from her hand. He started at the bottom of the hair and started working his way up. It'd been far too long.

"What was she like?" Michaela asked distantly.

"My wife? She was everything I could ever ask for. Beautiful, smart- she knew as many languages as I did- funny. Wise," he said with a shiver. "She saw the war coming from a hundred miles away. That was why she told me to take the bunker assignment. She wouldn't tell me that, but I figured it anyhow. I remember how I wished that I would've died with her." He stopped brushing to look her in the eyes, "Now I'm glad I didn't. Who would've saved you?"

She didn't respond.

Curt looked at the ground as they walked, hours later. The narrow bill of his cap shaded his eyes from the sun only when he looked nearly straight down. It was part of the reason he hated walking east. Michaela did the same, holding a hand over her eyes. Curt looked up, checking where they were headed, and saw two figures through the sun. After closer examination, he whispered to Michaela, "Hey, look at that. It's another Keidran and Human pair traveling." Like Curt and Michaela, the group about fifteen yards in front of them held a female Fox Keidran and a male human-at least as best Curt could tell; something seemed off about him.

The human was about 5' 6" and wore no shirt, but had golden brown skin- Curt guessed that he didn't wear a shirt often- and looked sixteen or seventeen. He had a mop of dark brown (maybe it was black, Curt couldn't tell) hair and wore light brown pants, a sword strapped across his back, a small bag slung over his shoulder. The Fox looked about like Michaela, around 5' but with a slightly different fur pattern, and was nude, as Curt had came to expect.

Michaela's head and ears turned, though Curt still thought it odd that they didn't really turn at the same time; her ears led her head. "I'm not so sure that one is human," she muttered, as low as Curt could hear, gesturing towards the male of the group. "He has... Ears and a tail like a Tiger Keidran. Look, see, his hair almost hides the ears and his tail is around his waist, like some kind of belt. Curt, I don't know what... that... that thing is. We should avoid them."

Curt nodded and changed his whole stride and posture, the quick yet silent walk he'd learned in pararescue kicking in. The group in front of them conversed quietly. Suddenly, the -full- Keidran's ears shot up and rotated behind her. The... thing's ears did the same. They both turned around and the-Curt decided just to call him Human for now- had a sword drawn, his whole form poised in a remarkably good battle stance. Curt jerked his rifle to his shoulder, his thumb automatically clicking the safety off, the sights trained on the Human's heart. The females of both groups knocked their men's weapons down. Both men locked eyes and burst out laughing.

"I see you're stuck with one, too," the other human said, starting in another tongue- Curt recognized it as Keidran- but correcting himself into speaking English (_Didn't Michaela call it "Human?")_ earning him a playful shove from his companion.  
"Women and their unwillingness to pointlessly fight," Curt said and rolled his eyes. Michaela gave him a shove mirroring the other Fox Keidran's. He shouldered the rifle, walked over to the other man and stuck out his hand. "Curt Lane. Pleased to meet you."

"I'm Aaron. Likewise," the younger human responded as he took Curt's massive hand and shook it with a surprisingly strong grip.

"Where y'all headed?" Curt asked, gesturing to the other couple.  
"We'll know when we get there," the younger couple- the other Fox looked much younger than Michaela- responded at the same time, causing all four to laugh.  
"I can understand that. Oh, and, where are my manners? This is Michaela," Curt said, motioning to the older Fox.  
Michaela shook the hands of the other two, a gesture Curt hadn't expected from her.

"I'm Lia," the Fox said, still warily eying both Curt and Michaela. Curt bet that it was the clothing he and Michaela wore... It made them stand out a bit.

"Well, if y'all are headed northwest, you're more than welcome to join us," Michaela said. Curt noticed (and liked) how much she'd started using 'y'all.'  
Aaron looked to his companion. "We were actually going east, but thanks to this damn outdated map, we're lost, so I don't think it will make much of a difference," he said, pausing slightly, "So where are you two going?"  
"I'm taking Michaela home," Curt said.  
"We came from Fox territory. If you just head southwest, you should come to it in about a day or two's time," Aaron offered.  
Michaela shook her head, "It's not a good idea now. The Templar are going down through there in an attempt to flank the wolves."

Curt jerked his head to face Michaela in surprise. He hadn't heard about that one. Then again, Michaela didn't like to talk about the war, so he wasn't that surprised.

"My _former_ master had connections, what can I say?"

"The Templar aren't at war with the Fox, are they?" Aaron asked in a gasp. Curt guessed that he had to have some kind of emotional connection with the Fox clans. _Michaela did call them clans, right?_ Curt thought for a second, trying to read the young boy. _He hasn't heard of the war, has he? _It didn't look like it to Curt.

"Thank the gods, no," Michaela said, causing Aaron to let out a barely visible sigh of relief. "I want to get home before they have a chance to hit the Fox, though."

"So how _do_ you plan on making it home, then?" Lia asked.

Michaela rolled her eyes and jerked a thumb at Curt. "He has a plan. He won't tell me what it is, but he has a plan."

Curt looked up. "I was hoping to get to a town by sunset. Most of them have been destroyed by the war, but I think there's one up ahead that'll be left. Let's get moving instead of standing around."

Lia and Michaela glared up at him, his large frame dwarfing all of the others. Curt and Aaron laughed. "They like to talk, don't they?" Aaron asked as he turned around and started walking. Curt walked right beside him, the girls falling in behind them.

* * *

Michaela looked at the other Fox. She looked about seven or eight, with a typical fur pattern not much different from her own. Michaela envied the other Keidran's young age, but was sort of glad she was almost fourteen, too. She could hold a commitment, stay focused, as was proper, but it also meant that her time, _time with Curt, _she thought, well, it was limited.

Lia sampled the air. He eyes shot open and she lowered her voice, switching to Keidran. "You're in heat, aren't you?"

Michaela gulped and responded in the same language, "Yeah... You were not so long ago, weren't you?"

Lia nodded. "Yeah, not so long ago at all. How'd you know? I did my best to wash it off."

"Your scent is all over him," Michaela said, nodding towards Aaron.

Lia blushed deeply. "Oh."

"Don't be embarrassed. I've been having the same desires for Curt all day. I'm glad it's easy to hide at first; this is my first day."

"Does he know?" Lia asked, nodding at Curt.

"No. He didn't even know what a Keidran was when I met him."

"Has he lived that sheltered a life?"

Michaela shook her head solemnly, "He couldn't have lived anything farther from a sheltered life. His wife and two daughters- and a grandson now that I think about it- were killed in a war he didn't support. I can tell he's been through a lot of physical pain, too. Look at his left arm sometime."

"Oh, then how didn't he know?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Lia shrugged. They walked in silence for a few beats. "Tell me anyhow," she finally said.

"Curt, well... Let's just say that he ain't from this world."

"This world?" Lia asked, clearly not following.

"Yeah, he thinks that this is either another planet or another universe entirely. He says that his people destroyed his planet. Completely."

Michaela could tell that Lia could barely restrain her gasp. "No sheltered life at all, then," she finally muttered.

"No, not at all."

"So, do you plan to tell him?"

"I'll have to by the second or third day," Michaela muttered, feeling her ears droop. "It'll be too strong then."

Lia nodded understandingly. All females hated going into heat; they felt so weak and powerless to their desires, so outcast and shunned. "How well are you usually able to restrain yourself?"

"As well as most, not as good as many," _Geez, Curt's odd way of speaking is getting to me, _she thought.

Lia shook her head. "You'll have a hard time, then?"

"Harder than usual. I actually _like _this one."

Lia nodded. "Yeah, it's even harder if it's mutual," she muttered, with what sounded like (recent) experience to Michaela.

Michaela sighed. "I'm still not sure if it is or not. Sometimes, he acts like it is... Sometimes, not so much." She paused in thought, "I'll know soon enough, won't I?"

Lia grimaced. "Hope it goes better for you than it did for me," she muttered, her voice trailing off.

Michaela tilted her head. "How do you mean?"

"See that tail?" she asked, gesturing towards Aaron and waiting for Michaela to acknowledge. "It wasn't there before we... you know..."

It was all Michaela could do not to burst out laughing. If that wasn't bad luck for Lia and Aaron, well, she didn't know what was. "If that happens wh... Wait, what about his ears? Were they there before y'all..."

"Yeah, they were, that's most of the reason we're traveling. We want to know more about Aaron's past."

"I'd think that he'd have quite a past," Michaela mused. Just how _did _you get someone _(something?)_ like Aaron?

"I'd like to know more about you and Curt," Lia said in the same musing tone, "You two master and slave?"

"No!" Michaela practically yelled. The two in front of them turned around for a second before shrugging and dropping back into their own conversation. "Curt freed me," she finally said lowly. "He'll never allow me to be a slave again, not as long as he is alive. That is his promise."

Lia looked at her, stunned. "A kind human... I've only seen one other, and he was raised by the Fox."

"Aaron? Was he now? Wonder if he knew my brother," she mused. "His name was Seth."

"Seems like I've heard him mention that name before," she said and gasped, eyes wide, "Wait! Seth and his wife, May, they _raised _Aaron! You're like family," Lia exclaimed in a high-pitched voice and wrapped Michaela in a death hug.

Michaela lightly patted Lia's back, unenthusiastically returning the hug. "Okay, that's enough," she finally decided to choke out, "I can't breathe."

Lia recoiled a bit, grimacing and holding her hands to her muzzle, "Sorry, I have a tendency to do that..."

Michaela noticed that the whole group had stopped and that Aaron and Curt looked at the two Keidran oddly. "Apparently, you were raised by my brother," Michaela told Aaron in a very flat voice, making an effort to switch back to Human so Curt could understand. "Lia is very excited about this."

"Seth is your brother? Did you know May?"

"Friend of mine when I was younger. I always knew Seth was sweet on her," Michaela said and rolled her eyes. "They were both good people. You couldn't've had better parents."

"I know," he said with a thoughtful pause, "Who else would have raised a child that they'd never met, one not even of the same race, at that?" He said and sampled the air for a second. His eyes shot open. "Michaela, are you?" he said and his voice trailed off. _He knows._

"Uh, c'mon, we shouldn't stop like this," Michaela said, shooing them all on. "Maybe he won't say anything to Curt," she muttered to Lia in Kiedran as they got started again.

"Don't count on it," Lia muttered in the same language and rolled her eyes.

Michaela fought the urge to chew at her claws. What would happen if Curt _did_ find out? She corrected herself. _What _will _happen when he _does _find out? _She didn't want to know. She and Lia stayed silent, their ears turned towards the conversation Curt and Aaron were involved in. Curt asked, "is she what?"

Thank the gods, Aaron responded with a pause and the word "nothing."

"Do you want to talk?" Lia asked her helpfully.

"No. My own thoughts are enough torture right now."

Lia sat a reassuring hand on her shoulder and nodded. They walked in silence, listening to the conversation the men in front of them were having. They talked about weapons, the past, war; basically anything that Michaela wasn't interested in.

Then came something she was interested in. Aaron asked Curt, "So are you two..._involved_ like Lia and I?"

She was nervous for the response. "How are you defining involved, son?" _Sounds like Curt, anyhow,_ she thought as she rolled her eyes.

"_Involved_ as in...a couple," Aaron responded slowly.

_Now _she _really_ was nervous for the response. "Well, uh, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I guess so."

Her eyes widened. _It's true, then! It's mutual! Oh, that's... Such a relief. Oh, now I can rest well, _she thought. _Wait. No! _If she was in heat and he liked her as much as she liked him... _I'll never make it through the night, will I?_

Lia nudged her in the side, smiling, "You're a Fox, what can I say?"

Michaela held back her tears. "But why? But why?" Why couldn't she have been human like Curt? Why did she have to go through this torture? Why did she have to put others through it? Would it ruin what little of a relationship she had with Curt? _So many questions, so few answers. Just like the days I was a slave. I'm still a slave, aren't I? Curt can't save me from this slavery, though, can he? No, he can't. I'm a slave to my birth, my own skin and bones. Nobody can change that. Nobody. Never. _She felt a chill walk its way up her spine. She was cursed and no matter how much he promised, Curt couldn't stop it.

"Yeah, I remember that oversensitivity from heat, too," Lia muttered with a slight roll of the eyes.

What was that word Curt had taught her? "_Verdammt," _she remembered.

Lia gave her a confused look. "What?"

"Curt knows five languages. He taught me that word."

"What does it mean?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Oh," Lia said with a laugh. "Sometimes Aaron switches languages to curse, too."

"Don't you know both of them, though?"

"Hasn't stopped him yet."

Michaela let out a girlish giggle- more than she'd allowed herself for the whole day. Curt was an observant person. Had he noticed her odd behavior? Probably.

The four of them walked for hours, but Michaela didn't mind it as much as she thought she would—the longer she walked, the more her feet protested. The more her feet protested, the less she could think about Curt. The less she could think about Curt, the better off she was.

* * *

"The Humans?" Aaron asked Curt. "What are you talking about? Their empire's never gonna be destroyed."

"You never know," Curt responded flatly.

"Look at their war with the wolves. They'll never loose that. The wolves took out their king and they didn't give up, they kept fighting! The Fox are helping them now! They're allowing them to pass through their territory because the Fox hate the Wolf for assisting in the slave trade. They know how to bargain. If they allow the Templar through, they will avoid a conflict. They'll never fall, and they will reign as the superior race until the end of time."

"All great countries are destroyed. Why not theirs?" Curt responded flatly. "Look at my country. It was the greatest nation on our world. Now it's endgame there. It was the fracturing of all we relied upon. So many people had died... We were so numb... We forgot how to feel." He shook his head. That would get Aaron's attention of nothing else did, Curt figured.

Aaron never responded, though. He was quiet, even after they stopped hiking and set up camp. He even stayed in thought the whole time he sat up the tent for he and Lia. Curt knew just what he was thinking about, too.

Michaela was quieter than usual, Curt thought, though she put up and awful protest when he asked her where she wanted him to set up the tent for her.

"No, you'll stay in that tent, too," she'd told him flatly.

"I'm not so sure about that, Michaela, that's a _very _small tent."

"If you don't use that tent, _nobody _will," she replied bluntly.

Was it just him, or was she far moodier than normal? "Yeah, I guess I should've seen you using that one against me," he muttered and scratched his head. "Very well."

Across the campsite, Aaron laughed to himself. Curt let out an exasperated grumble. Aaron was hiding something and Curt knew it. Michaela was hiding something, too, but he didn't know what. He assumed the two were connected. _Then again, we all know what happens when you assume, _he told himself bluntly. He let out a grim chuckle as he went through his bag. _If they ain't careful, I'll be upset enough to start dropping into German. I hate it when I do that. _He dug through his pack, looking for the other reactor cartridges for his long gun. He found them. One made the gun fire 50 cal explosive rounds, the other made it fire simunition paintballs. He grabbed the paintball cartridge and slapped it in right as he heard Aaron call, "Hey Curt!"

"Yeah, Aaron?" he called back.

Aaron stood up and pulled his sword out of its sheath, walking to a clearing not too far from the campsite and assumed his fighting form. "In the name of meaningless battle, I declare this sparring match underway**.**"

Curt chucked and pulled his infrared goggles out of his jacket as he threw the jacket to the ground. He put them on and activated them, and grabbing his gun. He set the gun to handle the training rounds, a task far more complicated that it should've been. He paused and pressed the button that made his bayonnet fold out from the front of the small assult rifle. The Air Force had been wise in upgrading to them from the old P-90's and M-4's.

Aaron laughed, "I may not know much about your weapons," he said and paused for a beat, "But I don't see where you get the idea that you can best me with something like _that_."

Curt jerked the rifle to his shoulder and clicked the safety off. He squeezed the trigger, almost snapping it, _Verdammt! Focus, man!_ The round hit Aaron right over the heart. Aaron stood there in shock for several seconds before he finally looked down. "Nonlethal training rounds," Curt explained, "We call them 'paint balls.' It's not about the weapon, it's how you use it. That would be round one for me, if you declared it open."

Aaron stared blankly into space, stunned. Curt could tell that Aaron was both cursing him out in his mind and trying to figure out how to counter the long-range superiority Curt held.

"I'll come closer, if you want. That's what I need help with, anyhow," Curt offered; it was the truth. He needed to learn how to counter close-range magic and sword attacks; he had plenty of marksmanship training already.

Aaron's face lit up. _What's he scheming up over there?_ "Alright. Close quarters it is, Curt," he said, motioning for Curt to come over.

Curt walked slowly, perhaps somewhat cockily, over, until he was about four yards form Aaron. He took his left hand off his sword, aiming it towards Curt. A blue light began to glow around it, _Verdammt! It's the same thing that Wolf u-_ before Curt could react, the light smacked him square in the chest. He was blown off his feet and sent back to the ground. _I'm old. That hurts,_ Curt thought. "Ouch. Well done. That's just the thing I need to practice against."

Aaron smirked, looking down on Curt. "Plenty more where that came from."

"Is there, now? Be my guest," Curt said as he stood back up.

Aaron looked slightly stunned. Had Curt called a bluff? Aaron placed his hand back on his sword, bracing himself once more.

Curt shook his head, loosing the fog around it. _Maybe if I... It'd never. Well, if I take him by surprise..._ Curt charged, gripping his rifle heavily. Aaron jerked his sword over his head, in what Curt figured was an attempt at striking Curt before he could reach Aaron. He hit the blade of Aaron's sword with his rifle, knocking it out of the boy's grip and letting it fall to the ground behind him. Curt whirled around, bringing the gun lower as he did. He stopped spinning suddenly, the bayonet stopping half an inch from Aaron's side, right at the level of his heart, which Curt could see banging away under the kid's golden brown chest. "That's how I beat you with something like _this."_

Aaron looked down at his sword in shock. Curt remembered the feeling from when his instructors had showed his younger and cockier self off.

"I've had forty something years of hand-to-hand combat. I've had none against magic. Use anything you've got," Curt said, hiding his panting. _I'm too old for this, _he thought with a hidden grimace.

"Well one would think that _thirteen _years of training would at least account to _something_, right?"

"They do. You got scared. If you would've thought, you would've just stuck your blade out, wouldn't you've?" Curt asked. He'd had the same training and his instructors had used the same tactic to scare him.

"Yeah," Aaron agreed.

"Allow me to make it a little closer to what you're used to," Curt said and sat the rifle down, slowly drawing his bootknife. Aaron resumed his battle form.

The older man cracked his neck and assumed the stance he'd learned in basic. _Been a while since I practiced the knife stance, _he thought. He held his fists in front of him, the knife held backwards in his right. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, staying dynamic. He said two simple words, "Charge me."

Aaron did as he said and started towards Curt. Curt made sure not to move a muscle until Aaron was half a yard from him. Curt shifted only slightly, bringing his right hand up to meet the kid's blade. There was a clash of metal. Curt had the advantage of strength and decided to use it. He pushed against Aaron's blade, shoving brutally as he tried to get within arm's reach of the boy. Aaron had other plans. He pulled his sword back and stepped to the side, swinging for Curt's throat. Aaron stopped a hair's breadth from Curt's throat. "Finally," Curt heard Aaron mutter.

"Again, then," Curt said, disappointed. How had the kid won? He held up a finger telling Aaron to pause and pulled the sheath out of his boot, slipping it over the little blade on his knife. "Let's go, then, charge." Aaron did so, backing up a few yards and charging Curt full steam.

Curt grinned and met Aaron's blade in the same manner as he had the last time, but he allowed Aaron to keep charging, only slightly restraining him. Curt jerked his left hand out, palm flat. It connected with Aaron's chest, pressing into the boy's ribcage. He locked his elbow and let Aaron's momentum transfer to his shoulder, sending the kid flying over him. He stuck his right hand up, letting the cloth of the knife's sheath rub over several places on the kid's skin, places Curt knew would be fatal had the knife not been sheathed. Aaron slipped down Curt's palm and flew to the ground behind him.

It took the kid a few seconds to regain his senses before he sat up, holding his head. "Okay," he finally said. "You've won. No contest."

Curt chuckled and offered him a hand up. "I'll have you trained by the time we have to part, yet," he said. His voice lowered. "Never had a son. They killed my grandson, too, damn them." Aaron stared off blankly, head dipped a bit. Curt could tell that Aaron was feeling sorry for him. _I'll not have his sympathy. _"There ain't nothin' you can do about it, stop sympathizing and take my hand." Aaron looked slightly stunned as he took Curt's hand and stood up. _I've learned to read people far too well, _Curt thought. _They say that with age comes wisdom._ He rubbed his left shoulder and arm. _That ain't all it comes with._

They made their way back to camp. Curt could tell that Lia felt sorry for Aaron, even though Curt didn't know her too well. "Are you alright?" she asked.

"I'm fine," Aaron assured her, though the kid really didn't look it. "The man can fight. He might be on in years, but _damn_ the man can fight."

Curt just smiled broadly in response as he made his way over to where Michaela sat balled up in the fetal position. That couldn't be a good sign. "You alright?" he finally asked as he sat beside her.

"Uh... Well, I nee... No, I'm fine, don't worry about it," she stuttered.

Curt saw Aaron bring a hand to his mouth, suppressing laughter. Lia nudged his side with her elbow and hissed at him in Kiedran. _I know five languages. All I need to know right now is that one, _Curt thought with a grimace. "If there was _anything _I learned after being married for thirty-four years, it's that, if a woman says, 'fine,' it's not," he said, doing everything he could not to sound accusing. He glared at Lia and Aaron. "What are y'all hiding from me?" He crossed his large arms, which would normally be _very _intimidating.

Instead, Aaron broke out laughing. "You'll see soon enough, Curt," he said, almost like a warning. "You'll see." Lia hit him on the arm, but the kid only laughed more.

Curt stood up and started shouting, "_Verdammt ort wird mich noch umbringen! Was zum teufel habe ich dies eins zu bekommen? Verdammt! Verdammt! Verdammt!" _It took him until the last word of the second sentence before he realized that he'd dropped into German. He had a terrible tendency to do that when he was aggravated. _It's probably for the better, _he thought. He'd refrained from cursing in front of Michaela, it wasn't proper. When he wanted it to, however, his vocabulary could melt paint at forty paces.

He heard Lia hiss at Aaron behind him and Aaron make a similar reply. Judging by their tone it was, "_look what you've done!" _and "_it's not my fault!"_

Curt turned around, left hand on his head, waving his right hand slightly. "_Nein, nein, est ist nicht..." _He realized that he'd once again dropped into German. "I mean, no, it's not your fault. I'm old and tired. This world wears on me." He chuckled, "I tend to drop into German when I'm upset, as you can tell." It happened more than Curt liked.

"I'm sorry, Curt," Aaron apologized. "I was just trying to joke a little."

He let out a laugh, startling himself with its hollow and evil sound. "I remember those years, damn, I miss them. Yeah, I miss it when a joke made everything better, eased the mood. I take it you left the house, feeling like an adult? You've still many many years," he said, practically whispering by the last sentence, as he sat down beside Michaela, rubbing her back reassuringly. He was reassuring himself more than he was reassuring her, and he knew it. Nobody else needed to know it, though.

"It's like my father - er, Seth - told me, 'you're gonna go far, kid.'"

He shrugged. "Miss those years, too." He did. He missed it when, well, for one, his father was still alive to tell him anything, missed the days when he was but a kid, missed the days when he could still go far. Now, his world in ruins, he didn't have much farther to go. All he could do was get Michaela home and then, well, he didn't know what.

Aaron started to speak but was cut off by Lia's head falling to his shoulder as she nodded off to sleep. He looked over to her and had to suppress a laugh. "Looks like we'll be turning in," he told Curt.

"Michaela, c'mon, let's go," he said quietly.

"No, you take the tent. I won't have it," Michaela said quietly and distantly. _Was zur hölle ist los mit ihr? _He thought, but realized, _You're dropping into German again, Curt! "Wirklich? Wirklich? _No, I won't have that crap again," he muttered, purposefully putting the first two words in German before he picked her light frame up, carrying her into their tent. She put up surprisingly little protest. He poked his head out for a second. "'Night, Aaron," he said and, turning mischievous with his knowledge of what Aaron and Lia'd done the previous night, he winked, "good luck."

"'Night, and same to you," Aaron responed. Curt replied with an odd and disgusted look, _who the hölle does he think I am?_ "You need the luck more than I," he explained. _What _are _they hiding from me? Why would Michaela want us to stay in the tent earlier and only me now?_

"Alright," he whispered to Michaela, "we're in private, they won't hear us over what they're doing over there... So tell me, what's wrong? What are you hiding from me?"

"Curt, it's not that I don't want them to hear."

"So you don't want me to hear?"

"I do... But I don't... Do you know what I mean?"

He'd known the feeling all too many times. "Yeah, I understand. You'll want to tell me eventually, I'm sure. Until then, _I _want to get some sleep. I ain't gonna be able to, but I do want to try."

* * *

_Curt doesn't know the half of it,_ Michaela thought. He didn't, either. she was tortured with every second. They were under separate blankets, but she still felt the temptation. Temptation to do what, exactly, she didn't know. Anything that could get him to... well... with her. What could she do to get th- _No! Verdammt no! You know you can't! _Why hadn't she put up more of a fight when he'd carried her into the tent? Because she wanted it, and she knew it. She wanted a little more than that, too. Actually, she wanted a _whole _lot more than that.

But she couldn't. He laid there in but those loose pants and a blanket and she still couldn't. She sat there, mind whirling, wearing... nothing... and she still couldn't. Why did she have to go liking a human? Why'd he have to save her? She'd put him through so much more trouble than she'd helped him and she knew it. Well, had she actually? He'd really seemed to enjoy brushing her hair and fur that morning. It reminded him of doing the same for his wife, she knew. Was that the only reason he liked her; because she was like his nameless wife? Why did he never speak her name? Did he even think her name? Probably not. Why was that? Maybe she'd taken over his wife's place. She hoped so. No, he probably just didn't want to talk about her. _Gosh, what would it be like to lose someone so close?_

Could it be as bad as what she was going through? She doubted it. She doubted it highly. _Well, how long had they been married? _A long, long time. So, no, maybe she didn't have it as bad off as he did. _If he's been married that long, he's probably got a lot of experience wi... NO! NO, NO, NO, NO! You can't keep thinking these things!_

Still, Michaela had to wonder about his wife and daughters. What were they like? If they were anything like him, she'd love to know them. That was well out of the question. But what Michaela thought was the more interesting question was, was she anything like Curt's wife? He'd said only good things about his wife, but that didn't mean anything, did it? Men only liked their wives, right? _No, there seem to be more men that like women _other than _their wives than ones that like their wives._ So Curt's unnamed wife must have been something.

So was Michaela anything like her? She hoped so.

The torture went on, minutes creeping by as hours. Finally, she gave in to the constant drive, after Curt had fallen asleep. He had a remarkable ability to do that no matter what (knowing him, he'd accredit that to the military). He'd shuffled around just enough to throw the blanket off of him, though he still laid face up. So she crept, silent as, well, a fox, slowly closer to him.

* * *

Curt never thought that he'd be woken up by a girl trying to undo his pants. Contrary to what his teenaged self would've thought, it was a _very _unpleasant way to be woken up.

He stared up to find Michaela befuddled by his four-button fly pants. "_Was zum Teufel?" _he exclaimed. He wondered how long he'd been asleep, for how long Michaela had been trying to undo his fly, what she'd planned on doing once she _did _get it undone, and how many people he'd awoken. He spoke again, in calmer English, "What are you doing?"

She stared at him blankly, unmoving. _Deer in the headlights effect, _he thought with a roll of his eyes. Finally, she moved her hands to cover her mouth, "I'm so sorry, Curt.." She stopped, hesitant, before continuing, "What I was hiding... earlier... I'm... I'm in heat, Curt."

Curt was suddenly awake. _Very _awake; and he was, for the lack of a better term, pissed. "_Ich werde dich töten, Aaron!" _He screamed at the top of his lungs, the gutteral German sounding rather menacing. He reailzed that Aaron wouldn't understand and repeated himself in the same screaming voice, "_I'm going to kill you, Aaron!"_

He climbed out of the tent, debating on grabbing his long gun and pelting the little prick with paintballs when he emerged from his tent. He decided against it.

The kid emereged from the tent rubbing his eyes. He started to say something in quiet Keidran, but corrected himself into tired English, "Told you you'd find out."

"_Verdammt. Nur verdammt noch mal." _That was better left in German.

"You alright, Michaela?" The boy asked Michaela, ignoring Curt's anger and German mutterings.

She responded in an aggravated tone of Kiedran. She sounded pretty upset to Curt.

The kid replied to her in their language with a sigh and turned to face Curt. "So how am I going to resolve this?"

He sighed and shook his head. "It's fine... I just _really, really_ wasn't expecting that." No, he wasn't. _Verdammt _he wasn't.

"No offense," he said with a smirk, "But I did warn you. _Several_ times."

"_Schrauben sie," _Curt said flatly. It wasn't an expletive, but it sounded like it. He turned his attention to the tent, letting out a deep breath, trying to release _some _of his anger at the boy. "If I come back in there, will you promise not to try that again? If not, toss me a blanket and that coat I was using as a pillow."

The coat and blanket came flying out the flap of the tent, smacking Aaron in the face. "Tough luck, man," he muttered to him as he handed the items to Curt.

"_Fahr zur Hölle," _he muttered as he layed the blanket out and sat the coat at the top of it.

The boy returned him something in aggravated Kiedran, which Curt figured was probably no more than proving that Curt wasn't the only one who could speak without being understood.

He sighed. "Sometimes, curses are better left without understanding. Go back to sleep. At least you'll be able to do that."

"That's what you think..." The kid muttered, turning away from Curt and heading towards his tent.

"It means 'go to Hell,' if it makes you feel better," he said, rolling the blanket over him and putting his head on the coat. _It's gonna be a long night._

Aaron paused halfway back to his tent and hesitated before saying something in Keidran. What Curt found funny was that both the females replied at the same time in a heated tone.

Normally, he would've laughed. Curt didn't laugh that night.

Curt could hear nothing but his own thoughts pounding in the side of his skull. He'd blamed the boy for what wasn't his fault."We've more in common than you know, Aaron," Curt muttered as he shuffled around. Aaron may or may not have heard it. He realized how rude he'd been to Michaela, too. It wasn't her fault, either. "I'm sorry to the all of you, though," he muttered, realizing that he'd switched to French (what he always used when apologizing to his wife) a half beat after he'd finished.

"Don't worry about it." He heard Aaron reply in the same language. The boy paused. "Curt... Exactly how do we know Basitian?"

"Where I come from, we call it French. It's one of my five languages. It's supposed to be good for apologies."

"Oh, I see..." He replied.

Curt found it interesting that the boy knew French, and even more interesting that he didn't know he knew it, but Curt had more important things to worry about. For instance, just how was he going to keep his sanity while Michaela was in heat? How was she going to maintain hers was probably the better question, but Curt couldn't do anything about that, so he didn't worry about it. That wasn't quite accurate though, was it? He didn't worry about it as much as he normally would've. Yeah, that was a more accurate statement.

He sighed with a look at all the trouble he'd caused everybody. It took him a few seconds to realize that it wasn't his fault. It took a few more for him to realize that it really wasn't anybody's fault. Michaela sure couldn't help it and Aaron and Lia were just respecting her wishes to keep it under wraps. _Yet here I am, freezing my arsch off on the hard ground, paying for something not my fault. Verdammt, if that ain't the story of my life, what is? Always payin' for what ain't my fault._

His thoughts wandered throughout the night, with him drifting in and out of sleep. When he started feeling the dew falling on his face, he got up, grimacing at the protest his whole body made. It wasn't from sleeping on the ground so much as it was from fighting Aaron the previous evening. _I'm too old for this kacke,_ he thought, rolling up the blanket and putting the coat on over the T-shirt he got out of his pack. He picked up the fishing rod he'd made on the first day and grabbed his long gun from under the tarp where he kept it and the pack, sighing as he changed back to the .223L cartridge. There was a stream about a quarter of a mile north of the campsite and he intended to go fishing. He checked that he had everything and rolled his eyes when he remembered that he didn't have his tackle box. He reached under the tarp, grabbed it out of his pack and set off.

He walked slowly, hoping to find a worm bed along the way. Sure as the world, he found one about halfway to the stream. He pulled the entrenching tool off his belt and used it to flip up the soil, grabbing at a handful of worms before they disappeared back into the Earth, throwing the grimy things into a plastic bag he'd brought for... What had he brought it for? He shrugged. The bag was empty and that was all that counted. He repeated the process several times, his hands grimy by the time he finished. He walked the rest of the way to the stream and washed his hands in it when he arrived. He sighed as he set the bobbler where he wanted it. He took a hook out of the tacklebox and tied it to the line with a perfect knot. He reached into the little bag, grabbed a worm, broke it in half and skewered it on the hook. He sighed again as he cast the line into the water. When he didn't get a bite for several minutes, he sat down, propping himself up against a tree.

He supposed that the whole idea of fishing was a commentary on the world. The big man used the little man to get his food. That was the way Curt knew it would always be. He recalled his conversation with Aaron on the Human Empire. They'd fall and Curt knew it; all great nations and empires fall, but what Curt didn't care to tell Aaron was that they probably wouldn't fall in any of their lifetimes. He shrugged as the bobbler suddenly dipped under the water and was met with a lightening-fast jerk on Curt's part. The fish was hooked and fought the whole time Curt drug it in. He retrieved it to find a rather large crappie on the end of the line. Curt grinned as he unhooked the fish and re-baited the line. He started to toss the line back in. Suddenly, the hook just froze in the air, halfway through its ark. "_Was zum Teufel?" _he muttered. Had it hit a spiderweb? No, the whole line stayed frozen.

He heard a sound behind him. He dropped the makeshift rod, only half of him registering that it stayed hanging in the air, and grabbed his rifle from the tree, snapping it to his shoulder. "Don't bother, mortal," he heard a voice unlike any other say flatly. "Look around you. Time is frozen but for the two of us. Your projectiles would never leave your weapon."

Curt cursed. The voice, whatever it was, was right. He sat the rifle down, poised to draw his bootknife if needed. "What are you? Show yourself."

"You are in no position to be making demands, but very well." A mask and pair of wings floated out behind a tree in front of Curt.

"What... What _are _you? What... what do you want?" Curt managed to stammer.

"I am Neutral."

"That tells me a whole lot of nothin'. What are you?"

"Here, they call me a god. It is my task to keep the balance between the three races. I have just awoke from a great sleep. Now, you are the only one that can keep that balance."

Curt's form loosened. If the thing relied on him to do its job, then he had nothing to fear. What if it was bluffing? Why would it bluff, it was a god? What if it was a human with magic, though? No, it knew who Curt was. He loosened his form. "Alright, what do you need me to do then?" he stopped short of adding, 'and what's in it for me?'

"You plan on going through human lines and then through Wolf territory to get your companion home?"

"Correct." _If you're a god, why'd you need me to confirm that?_

"Change your plans. You are a general. Take command of the Templar army, I'll make sure that you can. Make them fail somehow, let the wolves win, but do not let them back into Human territory. It must be balanced. It would be easier for you to make it through crumbling enemy lines, no? It helps us both."

"More than likely, yes. There is, however, a problem with your plan."

"There cannot be. I am Neutral."

"There can be. I am Curt Lane. Listen, there's a problem with war and this is it; one side wins. One side loses. Always. No ifs, ands or buts."

"There have been draws in history, where both sides agree to peace. You cannot tell me that I am wrong."

"I can. One side has to go to the other and ask for this peace. That side will always be the one to come off the worse for wear."

The thing did not respond for some time. It finally did with a warning, "You will do your best or you will not like it. The God which governs your universe does not govern this one. He left it to us. He will not protect you."

The rod dropped to the ground. The hook and line plopped into the water. The wind whistled. Trees rustled. The thing was gone. Curt stood in shock. _That was weird. _He did a mental assessment, making sure he was awake. He was. He was awake and alive. _So what now? _He just went on like nothing had ever happened, picking up the rod and sitting by the tree, waiting for another bite.

He heard something rustle in the bushes behind him. _Wirklich? Wirklich? _He didn't have the energy left to snap the gun to his shoulder. He pulled it up slowly, scanning where the sound had came from.

"Don't use that," he heard a small voice whisper. He recognized it as Michaela's immediately.

He sat the rifle back down and picked the rod up, sitting back down. "C'mon, then."

"Figured you'd be up early," she muttered quietly, sitting down beside him, balled up, her head on her knees.

"Couldn't sleep," he muttered. "You probably couldn't either, though, could you?"

"Not at all. I kept thinking about what I did."

"Don't worry about it. Trust me, I have, and I've come to the conclusion that it's nobody's fault."

She stared at him blankly. "What do you mean? It was all my fault."

"Tell me you would've done that had you been in your right mind. Honestly tell me that."

She couldn't and they both knew it, so she didn't respond for some time. "Either way, I wanted to come to apologize... Though I can't make any promises that I won't do it again until I'm out of this."

Curt restrained a laugh and, being a bit daring, reached his arm over her shoulders. He pulled her closer to him. He hoped she wouldn't take it the wrong way but, the way he saw it, he had nothing to lose, did he?

Her firm, tense posture and demeanor loosened. She stretched her legs out and sat her head on his shoulder, just like she had the first night, after he made his promise. The promise he would still keep. She finally wrapped arms around him, her little frame seeming to melt into his larger one. It took him a couple of seconds to realize that she'd fallen asleep. He let out a single quiet chuckle and, for once in his life, hoped that he wouldn't catch anything for a while.

It was about ten minutes before he did. He woke Michaela as he pulled the fish in. She let out a sigh and a tired laugh.

"What?"

"Wasn't too smart to fall asleep on someone fishing, was it?"

He chuckled, "No, I don't guess so. Nice while it lasted though."

She stared at him with wide eyes. "You're really not mad at me?"

He shook his head as he unhooked the good-sized bass, "Trust me, you'd know it if I was." He paused and remarked, "This is a good stream." he re-baited the line _(how many of these fish are going to swallow the __worm?) _and tossed it back in.

Michaela sighed as she settled back down like she had been before he jerked the line. "This'll only make it worse, you know?"

"Make what worse?"

"My heat. It only gets worse when its mutual. It gets even worse when you're close."

"You can go back to camp if you want. If I keep catching fish this big, I should only need a few more."

"I still _want _to be with you, though, that's what I mean. Aaron no doubt told you about heat?"

"Yeah."

"He probably doesn't know how it changes when a female nears 14."

"No. I don't know what the significance is."

"Until we're around 14 (sometimes before, sometimes after), we can't commit to a relationship, as a general rule. After that, we can. By that time, when you go in heat, you only want one thing; that one person you've committed to. That means that, if you've no one in mind, its actually not as bad as it normally is. If, on the other hand, you do..." she trailed off. Curt realized that she was looking into his eyes.

"It's that much worse, huh?" he said, ignoring her longing glance. That was probably the smarter thing, at least he thought.

"Yeah, exactly," she muttered, looking away, cheeks reddening.

He watched the bobbler dip and jerked the line. That one got away. He muttered a curse under his breath as he put a new worm on his hook. _Verdammt bait robbers. _

"That is disgusting," Michaela muttered as he ripped the worm in two.

"It's just like love," he muttered as he stuck the hook through the worm.

"How is that?" she asked, looking rather disgusted and confused.

"Some slip away and leave your hook empty. Once you've got them, though..." the bobbler went down right on cue. Curt hooked that one. "Once you've got someone, though, they stay with you."

"How do you manage to pull off that level of poetry over something so disgusting?"

"Thirty something years of practice," he muttered with a roll of his eyes.

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Sometimes, it is."

A few minutes later, he had all the fish he needed and they headed back to the campsite. Michaela expressed that she wanted to hold his hand, but it was too disgusting. He rolled his eyes and kept walking.

When they got back to the campsite, he filleted all the fish up only to remember that he didn't have a fire to cook them on. He rolled his eyes and turned to the fire pit from the previous night, wondering what he had to work with. He found, to his pleasant surprise, that Michaela had built a fire and was struggling to strike the used matchstick he'd given her two nights ago.

"You know that they only work once, right?"

Her ears drooped. "Right... I do now."

"Don't feel bad, I'll get it," he said and walked over, lighting the dry kindling with two strikes off his flint with his boot knife. "That's a very good fire you built," he told her.

"I made it just like the ones you've built."

He shrugged. "I guess that's a compliment, then?"

"It is."

He smiled and started cooking the fish.


	5. Chapter 5

Alright, you've probably noticed by now, but here's chapter five. There will be a chapter six, even if it takes me a while to write; college is getting a little hectic now.  
The first part of the chapter continues the collaboration between | White Raven | and I.

(It is worth noting that I've had to hike the rating up a bit here because of the things I imply, but I'll stick with the rating Tom's original work has, namely 14 and above.) As always, feedback is appreciated.  
Thanks and enjoy.

* * *

Michaela saw Aaron come out of the tent, sniffing the air, no doubt smelling the fish Curt was frying up. That wasn't what she was paying attention to. She felt something hit her paw. She realized it was her cup; she'd dropped it in shock. Curt stared at the—what the heck was he?—boy in the same manner she did.

"Well that sure smells good," Aaron said, stretching.

Neither of them responded.

"What?" Aaron finally asked, looking around him.

"A... Aaron, what... what color is your hair?" Curt finally asked slowly.

"Really dark brown, almost black," Aaron responded just as slowly. "You two are beginning to worry me."

"No, it's not," Curt said distantly, brows furrowed, shaking his head.

"What are you talking about?" the kid asked, shifting his eyes between the two of them.

Curt slowly reached into a belt pocket and pulled out what Michaela recognized as a small mirror. He handed it to Aaron.

He almost dropped the little mirror, then looked back in it. He mumbled something unpleasant in Keidran. "I'm getting really sick of all of this," he continued in the same language. He kept staring at his newly orange hair through it. Michaela again wondered just how that you got something like Aaron.

Michaela looked him up and down again. Something else was off about him. Her train of thought stopped dead when she saw his feet, or, should she say, paws. He was still looking at his hair through the tiny mirror. "Aaron," she finally managed to choke out, "your feet..."

He looked down and jumped a bit again. He let off another few (loud) curses in Keidran. "What the heck?" he finally managed to stutter in Human.

"Who the heck is the better question," she heard Curt mumble under his breath as he flipped the fish over. She elbowed him a bit in criticism, even though she had to admit that she agreed.

"I heard that," Aaron muttered in an equally low tone.

"Have you an answer?"

The boy clearly didn't.

Lia emerged from their tent, her nose sniffing, too. She stopped dead when she saw her companion. "Uh, Aaron..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Aaron cut her off, "I know..."

Michaela could tell that Curt was doing all he could not to break out laughing. His best wasn't very good.

"It's not funny!" Aaron screamed at him.

"The _hölle _it ain't," Curt said, finally bursting out into laughter.

Michaela stifled giggles. Curt was right. It was funny, but she couldn't very well laugh at the poor boy's plight. Lia finally gave in and started laughing with Curt, making it impossible for Michaela to hold off. She broke out laughing with the rest of 'em. Aaron joined in soon enough, too. Curt suddenly stopped laughing with a guttural exclamation of _"Kacke!" _He paused to pull the fish out of the fire. "Almost burnt the _verdammt _fish," he muttered.

Everyone stopped laughing, but, she thought, it had been good while it lasted. Lia giggled a bit randomly every couple of seconds as Curt gave them all fish.

"I'm about tired of fish," someone muttered, though Michaela didn't catch who.

Curt chuckled. "That's alright. You'll like this; I put some of my own seasoning on it."

Everyone looked at him. Where had he got spice from?

Knowing why they were looking at him, he laughed and explained, "I always carry a bit with me. You never know when you'll get spat out in the middle of nowhere and run into a pretty girl."

Michaela could feel her face burn. "Thanks, I guess."

Curt just laughed and started handing out the fish. Curt was the only one to eat with silverware, as usual, though she'd expected Aaron to eat in the same manner. Needless to say, he didn't, chomping down with the two Keidran. Curt shook his head and chuckled. After they all finished eating, Curt got up, grabbed something out of his pack, and walked off for a few minutes. Michaela noticed and the heat in her made her burn to go with him, but something else in her told her to stay. Perhaps he needed his time. She sighed and fought the urge, not really remaining in the conversation held between Aaron and Lia, but not quite lost in thought either—she supposed that she was just lost. She shrugged imperceptibly. That seemed to be happening to her a lot.

Curt did return a surprisingly short time later, folding a piece of paper up and sticking it in a jacket pocket as he walked back to the circle of logs around the fire. He sat beside her, putting his arm over her, a gesture she hadn't expected, but she so desperately wanted. His touch was what she was missing. Why had he suddenly warmed up to her? She thought it better not to ask.

Aaron and Lia were giving him a blank look. _He hasn't been this affectionate to me in front of them, has he?_ He sighed and shook his head, jabbing an accusing finger at Aaron. "I've already told you." he shifted the finger towards Lia, "You've no room to judge."

They both stared at him blankly.

Michaela broke out laughing, earning her odd looks all around. "You can read people too well for your own good, honey." She froze, hands instantly covering her mouth. Had she just appended _honey _to that sentence? _Yep... I did..._

Curt laughed, "It's alright, I've _almost _done that several times today."

While it didn't make her feel any less embarrassed, it did make her feel better. _Why _is _he suddenly warming up to me? Has he felt this way all along and hid it? _She suspected that she was right. She desperately hoped so, anyhow. _Why is everything "desperate" today? _She asked herself. She knew that the answer was heat, but she didn't want to admit that, even to herself.

Aaron, apparently deciding that it was time to change subjects, looked to Curt and asked, "I guess we'll part ways today?"

Curt sighed, "Yeah, I suppose so. Hopefully, this one is more recent than yours," he muttered as he unrolled a map. "Well, we're going to be heading west," he said, indicating the direction on the map.

"West? Why would you go west?" Aaron asked in shock. "The battlefield is that way!"

Michaela sympathized with the reaction.

"I've got my reasons," Curt muttered smugly.

"I'd love to know them," Michaela said with a roll of her eyes.

Lia giggled, "Don't bother. Men are stubborn."

Michaela agreed with that, too.

Curt and Aaron clearly didn't.

"Women've no room to talk," Curt said.

"My thoughts exactly," Aaron agreed.

Both Michaela and Lia started to say something at the same time, cutting each other off.

Curt beat them both to it, "Another thing I've learned in 25 years of marriage is that _both _sexes are equally stubborn when it comes to this argument." Michaela could almost see pleasant memories, so transparent, so clear, in his eyes. She saw them abruptly end, too, no doubt in the same flames that ended his world. He sighed. "C'mon. Y'all know that this campsite ain't gonna clean itself up."

They all grumbled a bit but, knowing he was right, got up and started to clean up the campsite.

* * *

Curt's feet put up a massive fuss with every step he took. The clauses and blisters on them weren't getting any better. By the end of the first mile, he decided that he and Michaela would take a day or two's break after their hike today and before they started ascending the mountains to the Templar camps.

He realized that he'd missed half of Aaron's statement. "...I suppose that I mean I'm just glad to see that there's someone else out there like us."

Curt suppressed a chuckle at his own wit. "Kid, I ain't like you 'cause I ain't too sure of what you are," he said with a motion at Aaron's orange hair and Tiger Keidran feet.

"I meant like _us," _he said, slightly agitated, with a motion towards Lia.

"I know what you meant, kid," Curt said with a chuckle. "I was giving you a rough time." He paused for a second, "Though I have to agree with you. It's nice to see that there's someone else out there like us, too. I was starting to feel like a stranger in a strange land." Curt ignored the fact that he was still very much a stranger in this land so strange to him.

Aaron nodded somberly. "Wonder if people like us will ever be accepted."

"Eventually," Curt said. "Not in our lifetimes, but eventually."

"How do you know?"

Curt almost replied, 'The dialectic demands it' in a mockery of Communism, but checked himself (Aaron wouldn't get it anyhow, would he?). "If you and I can see it, other people will see that we're all equal someday, too."

"We ain't" -Curt stifled a laugh at his Southern accent getting to the kid- "exactly 'normal' people, though. I was raised by the Fox. You came from another world, one where everyone is equal. Meanwhile, everyone else in the world was raised to be loyal to their own race and to hate everyone else. A couple consisting of two kinds? Unacceptable."

"As to the people who protest a couple like ours," Curt patted his rifle affectionately, "I'll take care of them as they come. For the others, that's life; that's the way people—fuzzy or not—are. People want to feel superior to someone else. They want to be better, even if they ain't. Welcome to life, kid. It sucks. _People suck_."

"I know," Aaron said with a soft shake of his head. "Trust me, I know."

They trotted on in silence. What more was there to say? Nothing Curt could think of. Michaela and Lia quietly conversed behind them in Keidran. Curt wondered what they were talking about. _If it's in Keidran, it's none of my business, _he thought. _Most likely, it's actually about me, _he realized. He needed to learn Keidran and fast. _As old as I am? Yeah, right. _He let out an imperceptible sigh at that thought.

He decided to pull one of their own tricks on the women and dropped into French, which only he and Aaron understood. "What are they talking about, Aaron?"

Aaron switched to French himself. "Wait a second, you want me to eavesdrop on them?"

"That would be the general idea, yes. You can't honestly tell me that you haven't been listening in the whole time, can you?"

"I wasn't, actually."

"The ear you have turned in that direction says otherwise."

Aaron winced while Curt stifled a laugh. "Yeah, you got me," Aaron finally admitted. "Guess that was a dead giveaway."

Curt grinned. "A small one. Now back to the question. What are they talking about?"

"You," the kid said flatly.

"I could've told you that. _What about me?"_

"Mainly why you're suddenly acting as though you like Michaela. A little about your past and some questions they have. Why you two are heading west, stuff like that."

Curt knew that "stuff like that" usually meant that there was a glaring omission, but he let it slide. Curt nodded. "Makes sense. Figures, anyway."

"Well since they can't hear now, want to explain why we're going west?" Aaron asked with a gesture at the girls.

"You know of Neutral, no doubt?"

"The god? Of course."

"Let's say that it's given me no option. I told you I'm a general. Neutral wants me to take over the Templar armies and somehow end the war with it in the balance; neutral."

"How are you supposed to do that?"

Wasn't that the question of the year? "I don't know. I've got to though." He felt tears come to his eyes and silenced them of pure willpower. "It'll kill the only thing that makes this world worth living in if I don't."

Aaron gasped, "Michaela?"

Curt nodded, feeling the tears attempt to surface again. "Remember when y'all were sitting around the campfire and I left for a second? I had a second chat with it then. That's when I told the bloody thing that I'd not do it and it gave me that wonderful incentive."

"Wait... So _that's _why you're suddenly being so affectionate towards her, isn't it? Your time with her could be limited!"

"Hadn't thought about it like that, but you're right, kid. I don't want to lose another..." _Well, she ain't my wife. _"...girl like I did the last one," Curt responded at a mutter.

"You won't. You'll figure something out."

"Here's hoping for her sake," Curt muttered, perfectly earnest, somber.

"Yours, too."

"No. I don't care about my life at this point."

"How can you say that?"

Curt shook his head with a grim chuckle. "Kid, I've nothing to lose. My body is trashed from running too hard too long, I've lead my life into bloody ruins, and the fools that ran my world did the same to it. She is the only thing I care about, the only thing I've left. I'm going to get her home, and I might just die trying. But that's the only way I'll ever fail."

The kid looked at him blankly. "You've been through it all, haven't you? That's the only way I could see someone..." He trailed off.

Curt chuckled. The kid would learn the practice of selflessness eventually. Curt hadn't learned it until the day of the nuclear strikes. He'd had nothing to lose and a little closure to gain then. Curt looked, up ahead of them was the town they'd been traveling towards the whole time. _Finally. _He intended to buy some supplies, get a new set of clothes, and get to scaling the mountain. He really didn't feel like peeving a god. "You goin' into town, kid?"

"Yeah, we'd planned on it."

"Alright," Curt said, thinking. "We'll obviously have to split up while in town. We can all meet up..." Curt looked over his map and continued by indicating a road out of the tiny town, "at this crossroads outside of town."

"Alright, when do we meet up?"

Curt looked to the sun. "Noon good?"

"Sounds good."

They walked the rest of the way to the town and split up. Michaela didn't want to go into the town, given her experience in the last one, but she went with him in the end. Curt was, for once, glad she was in heat; it made convincing her to come with him a whole lot easier. Fortunately, the people of the town they entered that day were a bit more understanding than those of the first. Curt could tell that she wanted to go to various stores that he wasn't about to visit, but she _really _didn't want to leave his side—both for heat and fear. So, she stayed plastered to his side while he went from merchant to merchant and store to store, gathering all the supplies they'd need for getting up the mountains, even if it took them a week. Finally, with a sigh, he started looking for a place to get a new set of clothing so he wouldn't stick out so _verdammt _much.

It took Michaela a while to figure out what he was looking for, but once she did, she was all over it. Curt sighed. Her enthusiasm nowhere near made up for his lack thereof. It reminded him of times when he and his wife went shopping. He smiled and let her lead him to a retailer with that thought. He hesitantly opened the door when he got there. A short merchant about his age smiled from behind a counter. "How can I help you, sir?" He asked.

Curt made a mental note that the man completely ignored Michaela, but also noted that it was likely normal. He had much to learn about the world around him, he realized. "Yessir, I need some new clothing." He looked down and made a motion at his ABU garb, "This is a long story, but it tends to stick out."

The man walked from behind the counter, politely keeping a small fit of laughter at said garb down to but a chuckle. "That thing can go sit over there," he said with a shooing motion to Michaela. "What were you looking for?"

"You'll treat her with the same respect you're giving me or we'll walk out of here right now. That established, what would a Templar general wear in his spare time?"

The little man backed up a bit, intimidated by Curt's physical presence and threatening words (losing a customer was a retailer's worst fear, wasn't it?). He had that effect on people. He counted on it more than he should've. "Yessir, uh, we have a lot of men that go for the look come through. I've got just the thing."

* * *

Michaela did her absolute best to hold in the giggles that arose as she saw the short little man try and fit Curt in some kind of elegant robes that really didn't suit him at all. Her best wasn't very good and she thus broke out into short giggling fits every time the little man couldn't reach the top of Curt's tall frame and again every time he had Curt turn and examined him. The little man shot her a disapproving glance every time, but that only made her laugh harder.

She waited patiently, sitting on a shoe fitting bench, legs curled up under her. The man finally fitted Curt's robes—which he had to extend; there were no men Curt's size in her world. She wondered what caused that. Curt looked in a mirror and nodded approval. "Alright, now do the same for her. Whatever all the generals' slaves usually wear."

The man scratched his head. He wasn't happy with the proposition. Michaela was thoroughly shocked by it, but she loved the idea. She'd never gotten new clothes before. "You're taking this whole look a little too far," the man said flatly. It was becoming obvious that he didn't like either of them in the slightest.

"That's because I need the look," Curt said bluntly. "I was just promoted and will be taking charge of the army up the side of those mountains. I don't have the slightest clue what a general wears in his off time, though, I've just started to get the pay. My wagon was attacked by a group of thieves outside of town. They killed all my staff and lit fire to the carriage before I killed every one of them, but my wagon and people were still gone."

The tailor never grumbled while he had to fit her for simpler brown robes. Curt could lie, Michaela'd give him that. _I'd give him a whole lot more, too, if he'd let me._ She reflected again on how much she hated being in heat.

The robes felt odd on her, seeming to hang off of her, unlike the straight but smooth jacket Curt had given her, which seemed perched on her. The robes smelled different, too; more of what she was used to.

After a rather loud argument over how much the bill should be, Curt finally paid the tailor and they made their way out of the small shop. "That was nice of you," she told him as they began searching for a place to eat at.

"What was?"

"Well, for one, for making that man give me respect, and for two, getting me these," she said, shuffling around in the robes a bit.

Curt smiled, "What, did you think I'd let anyone give you less than they give myself? Did you think I might give myself more than I gave you?"

Michaela was flattered. She'd known that he was determined not to let her be a slave again, but she'd had no idea just how far he was willing to take that. "Tha... Thank you."

Curt didn't accept the gratitude. He didn't reject it, either. That worried Michaela to the point that she started suspecting that something was wrong. The way he ate when they finally found a place to do so confirmed her suspicions. He ate slowly, contemplatively. He never ate slowly. She mulled over asking him what was wrong as she ate equally slowly. Perhaps she was what was wrong. Could she be what he was so concerned over? It would make sense, wouldn't it? Too many people were in the small tavern for her to say anything to Curt while they were in the place, so she mulled over exactly how she'd put the question once they left. Finally, they both finished at about the same time, Curt paid, tipping well, and they left. It was about an hour before noon, but they went to the meeting place to wait, anyhow.

As they left the town and its throngs of people, she finally got her chance. "Did I do something?"

Curt looked at her, looking almost startled. "No, why?"

"You're acting kind of strange," she said, trying not to sound as concerned as she really was.

He shook his head. "No, no, it's nothing you did, nothing that's your fault."

"So something _is _wrong, then?"

"Yeah," he finally admitted.

"What is it?"

"Trust me when I say that you're better off not knowing."

She looked at him blankly. What could be that wrong? Was it something that would be bad for her? No, more likely something bad for him. "What is it?" she begged.

He shook his head, "No, I'm putting my foot down. You are much better off not knowing."

_Something bad for both of us_, she realized. She didn't like that, not one bit. "Fine, then," she finally conceded and crossed her arms. They stood at the meeting place for a while before they finally sat down, still waiting on Aaron and Lia.

Michaela felt an ear swivel of its self. It was Aaron and Lia coming up, nearly yelling at each other. Even Curt had no trouble hearing them, she could tell.

"Look, Aaron, I'm just saying that this isn't something to be joking around about," Lia shouted.

"I get that, but come on! What are the chances of _that _happening?" Aaron asked, still laughing.

Curt looked at Michaela, _"Was zum..." _He started in -he called that one 'German,' didn't he?- but corrected himself to Human,"What the heck?"

She shrugged widely _(How am I supposed to know?)_ and kept listening.

"Aaron, I don't give a _damn_ how slim the chances are, it's _not_ funny."

Aaron kept laughing, "Lia, calm down, it won't. I can almost guarantee it."

Lia didn't think it funny at all, shouting at Aaron, "Aaron! Shut up! Now! It _could_, and you have to accept that! Now _stop laughing!_"

Lia and Aaron stood over the two of them reclined in the grass, Michaela's head resting on Curt's spacious chest. Curt held a questioning look, with Michaela giving one similar. Aaron subdued laughter with a hand over his mouth. Michaela could tell that Lia only just held her anger in check.

"Do I even _want _to know?" Curt asked the younger couple, his expression one of amusement.

"It's actually hilarious. Lia has this crazy idea that she could possibly get preg-"

"Aaron, shut the hell up!" Lia half yelled, half hissed in loud Keidran, cutting Aaron's response to Curt off.

Michaela sat up and switched to the tongue herself. "How do you figure that? He's human." She asked Lia, though she added _at least I think he's human. _to herself.

"Human? Not according to the mage we talked to in the village." _Oh, so, I... was right..._

"Have an interesting revelation, did-"

Curt cut her off in Human, "Would you _please_ use Engli... Human around me, y'all? I don't drop into German around you _that _much."

Michaela ignored him and kept on in Keidran, "What'd he say?"

"Well, he somehow has knowledge of the mark on Aaron's arm. We stayed there a while, which is why we're late, but long story short...Aaron's actually a Keidran. He appears human thanks to a spell."

"Well, that... Wait, were you in heat last night?" Michaela asked.

"No. That's why I'm worried."

It took Michaela a second to realize that Aaron had been translating for Curt in Basidian. She ignored it; that way she wouldn't have to explain it later. Michaela shrugged. _"Nichevo. _If it's going to happen, it already has." Lia stared at her blankly. "Curt taught it to me. Means 'can't be helped.'"

"But...but what if it _does_ happen? We don't have a home, and I'm only seven!" Lia was starting to get emotional, tears dispersing lightly into the fur around her eyes.

Michaela had to think for an appropriate response to that one. "You'll do what you've always done," she finally decided to say.

"What do you mean?"

Michaela did what she thought to be a good impression of Curt's mischievous grin. "You'll survive. You'll find a way to keep living."

"But I...I..." Lia paused, searching for words with a deep breath, "Okay, you're right. We'll be okay. I hope..."

Michaela smiled warmly, hoping her fangs didn't ruin it. "You'll be fine. You're strong. So is he," she said with a gesture to Aaron, who still translated for Curt.

Lia realized what he'd been doing the whole time. Her relieved expression quickly returned to anger. She turned to Aaron and made no effort to prevent her claws from making contact as she smacked Aaron across his face. "And _you,_" she screamed in Keidran, "Can shut up and stop laughing about it!"

Curt took over Aaron's duties, laughing himself silly in the grass. Lia looked like she was ready to smack Curt, too, walking towards him, raising her hand. He shook his head, instantly serious. "Think, Lia. Look at me," he said with a gesture at his forearms. "You _don't _want to get me in on this. If you're tore up enough that you can't tell that, you need to calm the _Hölle _down." Curt sounded (very) threatening, yes, but Michaela could somehow tell that he'd never do anything to hurt Lia.

"Lia," Aaron called in Human, still on his knees in the grass clutching his right cheek. "Don't. It's not his fault."

Lia stopped, turning to look back at Aaron. "Fine. But the next time you laugh that hard at something like this, I won't just leave a small scratch on your cheek."

Curt raised his eyebrows and reached back into his pack, finally sitting up. "Three scratches covering the length of his cheek and leaving it dripping blood? That ain't no 'small scratch.'" He held a small canvas pouch with a large red cross on the front of it. He walked over to the... thing... and examined his cheek. "Actually, this'll probably require stitches. Lay down, kid, make sure that's facing me. We're gonna hafta do this the old fashioned way."

Aaron grimaced a bit as he did what Curt told him. Michaela watched with relative disinterest as Curt cleaned up the area of the boy's cheek with a piece of cloth and pulled a needle and string out of the little pouch, each contained in smaller clear pouches. He opened them and threaded the needle.

He looked around for a second and grabbed a stick off the ground. "Bite down on this as hard as you can. I don't have any anesthetic. Oh, and don't move. At all."

Aaron did that too, clearly not liking the taste of the stick, or, for that matter, the whole situation. Curt wiped away the blood once again and got to work, making neat, precise stitches in three lines along the side of the... Michaela decided to call him a boy...'s face. She and Lia dropped off into quiet conversation while the other two were thoroughly distracted.

Curt pulled the stick out of the boy's mouth and motioned for him to get up. "Six in the top one, eight in the middle, five in the bottom. That was a heck of a hit, kid."

"Her claws aren't what hurt. It was that needle."

"You'll thank me when that doesn't turn into a nasty scar," he said, slightly parting his robes, revealing a missive scar across the middle of his chest. "Chicks don't dig scars like this."

"Can't argue with that."

Michaela wondered what that scar on Curt had came from, but she decided that to be a question for another time.

"So, when will these need to come out?" Aaron asked with a gesture at the stitches.

Curt grinned mischievously. "You won't need to take them out. Trust me, you'll know when they fall out."

"Um...alright then..."

Curt finally decided Aaron had to know, "They're called dissolving stitches. They'll degrade and the knots will fall out here in a few weeks to a month." He reached back into the little pouch and pulled out a silver tube with a screw on top. "Apply this to them every morning, too. It's a cream that stimulates the body to repair injuries like that without scarring."

Michaela realized that she could've healed the boy with magic, but she decided not to worry about it. Perhaps it would teach the boy a lesson.

"Oh. Sounds simple enough. Thanks."

"Hey, I had to use all that first aid training sometime."

"I guess you have _Lia_ to thank for the practice," Aaron said, sounding and looking rather aggravated. Michaela couldn't blame him.

"Let's get moving, then," Curt said. Thinking for a second, he pulled a map out. "Actually, I think this crossroad here is where we part."

"That sounds about right," Aaron said with a nod. Curt offered him a hand and stood him up.

"Oh, and try to keep those dry, too," he said with a motion at the stitches.

"Got it. Can't thank you enough, especially for kicking my ass in front of my girl."

Curt grabbed his pack and started heading for the crossroads, "My pleasure."

Michaela turned to Lia as they started walking themselves, "So, this is goodbye, then?"

"I guess so. It's been fun," Lia laughed.

Michaela smiled. "Has been, hasn't it? Despite... The other things, like the discovery that I'm in heat..." She saw Curt shake his head at that one.

"At least your companion isn't a Keidran who looks like a human."

"Something tells me our story may turn out more complicated than y'all's," Michaela said, not at all kidding. Something deep inside did tell her that.

Curt laughed, "I damn well better not turn out to be a Keidran!"

They all laughed at that one.

"Hey, it might not be all that bad. At least I'm not confused about my race anymore," Aaron said.

Curt raised an eyebrow and shrugged, stopping in the middle of the crossroads. "That's something, anyhow." He paused, "Well, kid, when you finally _do _figure out who you are, I want you to come back to your old village. We'll be waiting."

"Can do. If you see Seth and May, don't tell them Lia's close to killing me. I want them to think I have at least a chance of living out here."

Curt smiled. "That's something I got a bit of experience with, kid. You'll love 'er more when it's all over with. Mark my words."

"Let's hope you're right."

Lia and Michaela hugged softly. Curt stuck out his hand and shook the kid's, certainly what he considered an equal sentiment. Michaela didn't see that, but she didn't care to correct the two. "I am," he said.

Aaron and Lia turned and started to walk up the northeast road.

Curt called out after they'd walked a little ways, "Hey, Aaron!"

The boy turned.

"Give 'em Hell, kid!"

Aaron raised a fist into the air. "That I can do!"

Curt smiled. Michaela swore that she saw the man shed a tear as he turned and started walking down the west road.

They walked in silence together for a long time, each buried in their own thoughts. Michaela's centered on the younger couple, but they frequently involved Curt, too. She supposed that Aaron and Lia had served as a nice distraction from her heat. Now that it was just her and Curt again, though...

"Kinda feel sorry for the kid," Curt said, seemingly out of nowhere, though Michaela knew just who he was talking about.

"Aaron? Yeah. I couldn't imagine growing up, thinking I was one thing, and finding out I was another however many years later..."

Curt shrugged. "At least he's happy... Well, minus the argument they're in now."

"You really think they'll really grow closer after it all?"

"Sarah and I always did," he said with a smile.

So _that _was his wife's name. She nodded. "Well, I suppose that if anyone would know, it'd be you." She glanced down at the ground with a regretful sigh, "I wouldn't know anything about it. Master didn't exactly let us love anyone. He locked me in a cage when I went in heat. Didn't even feed me until I was out of it. Still didn't stop him from using me as a breeder." She surprised herself with a hollow laugh. "Keidran are supposed to use mating as a way of getting to know each other. Master sure screwed that one up."

Curt stared at her blankly, taking in the information. "I've already told you that I'll never let you go back to that. Never. You don't even need to think about it. But, as to the lattermost, I find that interesting."

"Find what interesting? You mean about Keidran..." she trailed off.

"Yeah. Where I come from, people had a terrible tendency to use sex _in place _of really getting to know each other. Seeing a place where the opposite is true is kind of interesting," He said. "Actually kind of refreshing."

"I thought you said that it was wrong to... Outside of marriage?"

"Well, that would be among an increasingly small portion of the population..." He said, trailing off.

"I take it you were among those?"

"I was. Now? I'm not so sure. I haven't been sure for a while. Not after that day..." He hung his head.

She knew he meant the day that his world was destroyed. She decided that no reply was probably the best reply to that one.

* * *

Curt sat down on the log in front of the fire pit he'd dug. The fire was built, but he didn't plan to light it until it dark. He sighed and removed his boots and socks. His feet were more ragged and bloody than ever. He sighed and picked up the roll of gauze he'd already set out for the task.

Before he could begin to wrap them, Michaela saw his feet. She gasped and shuffled through her robes, no doubt in search of her crystals, as she ran over to him. "Let me heal those! That's awful!"

He waved her off, "No, no, don't waste one of your crystals on my account. We're gonna stay here for a day or two to let them heal. Heck, we could probably need to rest anyhow."

Curt could practically see a light bulb go off in her head. "Oh, okay, sounds good to me," she said and pocketed the crystals again.

Curt figured that that realization probably didn't mean anything good for him, but he just shrugged and started wrapping the gauze around his feet. He finished a few minutes later, Michaela coming to sit down beside him. Curt stayed deep in thought and was surprised by the fact that she didn't disturb him. He thought about just about everything. His train of thought focused on God and, well, the gods. He recalled Neutral telling him that his God didn't rule this world; He'd handed it off to the gods to manage. _There sure is enough wrong with my Earth to occupy God,_ he thought. So what did that mean? It meant that this world had its own set of rules, no doubt. Curt liked what that meant.

Curt was somewhat surprised when, several minutes later, his train of thought lead to music. He hadn't listened to or even thought of music in a long time. He wondered what kind of music Michaela liked. What kind of music did this new world have, anyhow? Probably only classical, unless he missed his guess. He finally decided that he should ask, "This will seem rather off-the-wall, but what kind of music do you like?"

She looked at her feet, "I've... I've never heard music before."

Curt was rather shocked. That was something he'd never thought about. He couldn't imagine a life without music; it always picked him up when he was down, lightened his mood, motivated and rallied his soul. What would a life void of music be like? He didn't want to find out. "Now that is something I have just got to fix," he said and started to get up. His feet weren't too happy about that one.

Michaela pushed his shoulder back down. "You stay off of those. What do you need?"

He guided her through his pack to his Holodisk. She handed it to him, eyeing the little device critically. She couldn't know what it was. He scrolled through the things the disk could be and selected the acoustic guitar. The guitar appeared around the disk, the device converting energy into matter and getting him what he needed.

"That _has _to be magic," she said.

"No, but it's the closest thing to it that you'll find coming from my world."

She just nodded to that.

He thought for a second. For an introduction, she'd definitely want softer music. What was a good song he could play? _None of that modern crap, that's for sure. _He thought back. Music from 2k had always been his favorite. So, what type of song? A rock song that had an acoustic version; he could sing those better. A love song, for sure. It'd been too long since he'd played a love song. He thought and smiled when he came up with at least two to sing.

He tuned the guitar down to drop C and started playing. _"You come to me with scars on your wrists/ You tell me this will be the last night feeling like this," _he started, his fingers moving across the fretboard seemingly of themselves. He skipped the female vocalist's part, getting to what he wanted to sing to Michaela, _"This is the last night you'll spend alone/ Look me in the eyes so I know you know/ I'm everywhere you want me to be/ The last night you'll spend alone/ I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let go/ I'm everything you need me to be..."_

He finished the song up a few minutes later, Michaela intently listening and watching his fingers the whole time. He thought that the solo thoroughly impressed her. "Well, what'd you think?" he asked as he let the last notes ring out.

"I loved it," she said with a smile. "Another, please!"

Grinning, Curt tuned the guitar back to standard and started playing. _"I could be in love if/ You wore that dress every day/ With your hair just so and your eyes are grey/ You make a beautiful bird on the line..." _It had been so long since he'd played "If" that he feared he might play the wrong notes or sing the wrong lines. He managed to get by without messing up until he got to the chorus. From there on out, he knew he couldn't mess up. "_If you were mine I'd tear the altar down of all that I've lost to romance/ If you were mine I'd risk my dignity if only to give love a chance/ if you were mine, I'd have the world/ I'd have the world, if you were mine..." _Curt considered all of the above true. He played on, until he finished the simple song with so much meaning.

"That's beautiful," Michaela said. "The two were so different."

"You have no idea," he said. There are so many different kinds of music, so many different ways to play and sing it, it's incredible."

"Can I try?" she asked with a gesture at the guitar.

Curt gently grabbed one of her hands. He tapped one of her claws. "There ain't no way you could play. Not with those."

"Oh," she muttered with a sigh.

"Ain't your fault," he said. "...Though, as pretty a voice as you've got, I'll bet that you could sing good."

"You... You really think so? I've never had anyone tell me anything like that."

"You know, this world is as new to you as it is to me, ain't it? The world of freedom? The world where you mean more to someone than as a piece of property?" He asked.

"I never thought about it like that," she muttered. "But I guess you're right," she sighed. "What songs do you think I could sing?"

"I know a couple you could sing with me," he responded. "Here, I'll play and sing through it once. I'll play it again and you can sing with me. This one is just called _Love Song,_" he said and started to play.

They did several songs that way, him playing and them singing together. They both loved it, both reveling in each other's company. They both found the love they'd lost in flame, or the love they never thought they'd have. They'd both lived hard, hard lives and they knew it, even if they wouldn't have admitted it. Those hard times finally seemed to be over and they loved that, too, maybe as much as they seemed to love each other.

They laughed and sang the light away, hardly noticing as darkness crept over them, setting early behind the mountains they'd be faced with in the coming days. They weren't too happy when they discovered that their joy meant that they would have to take their baths in the dusk light, but they did so anyhow.

Curt wasn't in the mood for putting the elaborate robes back on, so he donned a T-shirt and ABU pants instead, the robes remaining in his bag, folded up. He brushed Michaela's fur and hair quietly by the fire light. "You're very good at this, you know?" she asked him.

"I'm glad you approve," he said with a devilish smile.

She rolled her eyes. "You know what I meant."

He just grinned even more widely. He looked around the campsite as she brushed him. Something seemed off. _Verdammt, _he kept his voice flat, informative, "You know what I just realized?"

"What?"

"I forgot to get a second tent while we were in town."

"Oh, I didn't even think about that," she muttered.

"It's alright," he said with a sigh. "I don't mind sleeping outside again."

"You'll do no such thing!"

He checked his watch as he finished brushing her. It was 2106 hours, anyhow and they were both more than tired. "Fine," he relinquished. "Help me to the tent, then."

"That's a little more like it," she said with a grin.

He tread lightly, trying not to put too much weight on her small frame as she helped him to the tent. They got to it and he took her hands as she helped him set down gently inside the tent. She turned to go right as he crawled in the tent. She tugged against his arm, not realizing that he still held her wrist until she pulled away. "Let go," she said. "I need to get the emergency blanket."

"You'll do no such thing," he teased, mocking her earlier words.

"Curt, you know I'll never be able to fight the temptation."

"Then don't fight it. You deserve to know me better."

* * *

I wanted to give credit to the songs I use in here. The first is "The Last Night" by Skillet, the second "If" by House of Heroes. Finally, there are numerous songs entitled "Love Song," but I was thinking of Anberlin's cover of the one by The Cure when I was writing this._  
_


	6. Chapter 6

Alright, I don't have any real notes for this chapter, just that it's a little short, but I figure Chapter 7 should more than make up for it. It is also worth noting that Chapter 7 may take a while to complete, as well.

Enjoy!

* * *

Curt pressed in the clutch and shifted his 1964 Ford Galaxie into fifth gear. The four-barrel 390 under the hood roared as he topped the 100 mile per hour speed limit, barreling down US-172. Despite being a hundred years old, the old car could still keep pace with her modern counterparts—thanks, in part, to Curt's retrofitted five-speed overdrive transmission. He let out a laugh as more modern cars gave him a wide berth; the older car could tear the newer tin cans that passed for automobiles to shreds with but a kiss.

The odometer climbed towards 400,000 but still she drove on. The jet-black Galaxie had been handed down to Curt from his father's father, and his father before that. He recalled with a smile that his great-grandfather had bought it to run moonshine in the '70s. Since receiving it, Curt had re-built the engine and the rear axle himself, along with replacing the transmission with a more modern model.

He sighed as he signaled to go up exit 129. His last deployment had been rough. The North Koreans could fight, he'd hand 'em that. He cruised down the back roads to his house, still in the middle of nowhere after how many years, again? The home was nearly 200 years old. He heard the engine purr as he rounded corners on the snake-like North Carolina roads. The back roads were some of the few places where the speed limit remained the same as it had been in the Galaxie's days. He recalled Michaela (something seemed off about that name) chastising him for not putting a modern sound system in the car while he was fixing it up. He'd replied flatly "this old engine's the only sound system I need." He still loved that rumblin' sound.

He pulled into his driveway, shifting into neutral, pulling the parking brake and cutting the car off. He got out, looking the massive old car up and down. Gosh, they were some beautiful cars. A prettier sight stood behind the back door, too, he knew. He decided to leave his bags in the car's absolutely massive trunk and walked straight to the house's back door. He didn't knock, instead throwing the door open. Michaela stood there washing dishes in the kitchen. She dropped one as she ran to him, wrapping him in a teary hug. "I thought you'd never come back," she said at a whisper. "I was so worried."

"So was I," he said, his arms swallowing her small frame. He closed his eyes, feeling tears run down them.

"Daddy's home!" he heard one of the girls yell as they ran into the room, ears flopping, tails wagging.

He let go of his wife and kneeled down, opening his arms. They ran into him, one of his arms engulfing each of them. "Oh, my girls," he muttered squeezing them—perhaps a little harder than he should've. How old were they now? Five and six, he thought. "Oh, I'm so glad to be home," he whispered and stood up, repeating,"I'm just glad to be home."

The girls clung to his pants, grabbing at their large pockets, no doubt seeing if he'd brought them anything. He had, little Korean dolls, but they were still in the car. Michaela looked to him with understanding eyes, her ears drooping a bit. "How bad was it?"

He hesitated. "I've never seen anyb-" he was cut off by a bright flash from the window. It faded, revealing the mushroom cloud above the trees. "No!" he yelled. "No! Not now! Not no-"

He shot up straight, throwing Michaela's arm off him, the blanket sliding down off him. His whole body shivered. It had nothing to do with the cold night. He gasped for breath, unable to find enough air.

Michaela slowly sat up beside him. He looked to her and instinctively engulfed her in a hug. "Thank God you're alright."

"Bad dream?" she asked, sounding a bit surprised.

"You have no idea," he said, retelling the dream, but starting at the door—he didn't feel like explaining a car—his hands still shaking and breaths still heavy.

She lightly hugged him. "I'm so sorry..." she trailed off. "But I was your wife in this dream?"

"Yeah."

"And we had kids?" she asked. "What were they like?"

"They had your ears, eyes and tail, but they were human otherwise."

"I always wondered..." she trailed off, staring into space. "Let's go back to sleep."

He almost laughed and told her that it wasn't happening, but instead teased, "Yes, dear," and laid back down. She curled up next to him, her fur soft and warm against his bear skin. _Why did I have that dream again? _He'd had it time and time again (granted, with his real wife and kids) after the Chinese strikes, each time living again that Hellish sensation of losing his family. _So why now? And why was Michaela my wife? _It took him a second to conjure up an answer. _Because t__here was only one thing I never did with anyone but Sarah... And I just did it with Michaela..._

It made perfect sense, though it kind of startled him. How had he given up the only sacred thing he had with Sarah so quickly? He'd only known Michaela for a few days. It seemed more like Hollywood _kacke _that what he should've been involved with. He reminded himself that he was on a new world, and what he'd just done meant every bit as much, it just meant it in a far different—and he thought, better—way.

_I'd __better get some sleep, though, _he thought and relaxed again.

Sleep had come easier than he'd figured, he realized as he opened his eyes. He smiled broadly when he saw that neither of them had moved during the night. Michaela was still warm, warmer than she had been when they fell asleep, her head against the side of his, arms wrapped around him. He sighed softly. His emotions were very much mixed about the sight. He loved, it, of course, but it meant a whole lot of things. He let out an amused grunt of a chuckle, _It also means that I can forget getting up without waking her._

He'd try, anyhow. He did have plenty of practice with the sport, after all. He first moved the blanket off him, shifting it over her and slowly moving the arm she had on top of him off, slowly raising up and replacing the blanket as he got up. _She must be a heavy sleeper... _He crept out of the tent, grabbing his underwear and pants, putting them on as he exited, and walked to his pack, covered by a tarp to keep the dew from getting to it. He quietly removed the tarp and grabbed one of the brown bags full of food he'd gotten in the town. He unrolled it and pulled two large slabs of salted ham out from between the waxed paper. He pulled out his mess kit and separated the skillet from the rest of it, throwing the ham into the large aluminum pan and throwing it on the dying fire, which he built back up. The ham popped and sizzled in the pan as he dug through the pack a bit more, finding the vegetables he searched for. He sighed, hating to do it, but knowing that he'd be without a lot of the vitamins he needed without the things. He chuckled, he'd always said that you were neither young nor old when nobody had to make you eat your vegtables. Michaela emerged from the tent, sampling the air as she did so. He grinned and put the ham on two plates, handing one to her.

"Looks good," she said.

"Go ahead, eat it while it's hot," he told her as he put the assorted vegetables into the already hot skillet.

"No, I want to wait until you eat."

"None of these, then?" he asked with a laugh and a gesture at the vegetables.

"No, I can't eat those. They make me sick."

"Ah," Curt muttered as he took the skillet off the flame and slid the vegetables onto his plate, half wishing he could use the excuse. He pulled the silverware off his belt and started eating. Michaela did too, neatly consuming her ham with two large bites. He chuckled and kept eating as rapidly as he could.

"Curt," Michaela said.

He paused to swallow the lump of ham and green beans in his mouth. "Yes?"

"About last night..."

She had his attention.

"You didn't do that because you felt sorry for me, did you?"

"No, of course not. Why would you think that?"

"I don't know. It seems like you feel so sorry for me, for what I've gone through, that you might even do... that."

He shook his head. "No, that's something that you only do because you want to."

He could tell that she was relieved by that statement. She nodded and motioned for him to continue eating. He chuckled and did so. No sooner had he finished eating than she dropped a small bombshell, "Then why _did _you do it?"

Curt smiled. "Why did you?"

"Because I'm in heat!"

"You said that your heat was focused on me, correct?" he asked in the manner he would've explained an afterburner to a new pilot.

"Yeah..."

"Then you would've enjoyed it, heat or no?"

She hesitantly nodded, though it didn't look like she enjoyed that thought. "I guess I understand."

He nodded and went down to the stream by their campsite to wash their plates. He sighed as he looked at the mountains above them. "Those are going to be a _pain _to climb."

"Then why are we?" she shouted at him.

He sighed. He'd have to tell her, wouldn't he? "I don't have an option."

"The heck you don't!"

"No, I mean it, _I don't. _You've heard of Neutral, I'm sure?"

"Yes," she said, motioning for him to go on.

"It's told me to take command of the Templar army, fight this war for him. It'll... it'll kill you if I don't."

Her eyes went wide. She was trying to come up with a response, though he thought she was having some trouble with it. "Wait, kill me? Not you?"

"Nope. _You."_

"Why me?"

"It threatened to kill me. I laughed at it and told it I'd likely be better off. That's when it told me it'd kill you."

He wasn't very surprised when she wrapped him in a half leaping hug. "I'm so sorry. All along, I was mad at you... And you were protecting me."

He returned the hug lightly. "That's my job," he whispered, "It has been and will be from now on."

* * *

Michaela sighed as they made their way up the side of the mountain four days later. Curt had decided to wait until she was out of heat to begin making their way. She thought it a very good idea; she didn't like the idea of going into the Templar camps period, much less in heat.

"You alright back there?" Curt asked of her sigh.

"Yeah, but this ain't my definition of fun."

Curt chuckled. "Mine either. But just remember how old I am, that should make you feel a little better."

Surprisingly, it _did _make her feel better. She couldn't imagine trying to walk up the steep, rocky side of the mountain with her joints aching and crooning, like Curt's surely were. Then again, she wasn't so young herself. She let out another sigh and kept walking.

Her ears shot up. She heard something. She didn't know what it was, but she heard something. It was unlike anything else, it seemed above her and all around her, a constant beating sound. Suddenly, the forest in front of them crashed down, replaced with the brown scales of a dragon. She took off running down the slope of the mountain. It took her a few seconds to realize that she wasn't moving and that her paws were digging into the ground, her arms and hands flailing helplessly. She realized that her robes were holding her back, like they'd been caught on something. It took her a second more to realize they'd been caught _by _something, not _on _something. Curt held the hood of the robe in his right hand, not faltering in the slightest.

"_You would do well to follow the example of your slave, human. You are not supposed to be here. You know that the Templar have annexed this land for your safety," _the large and intimidating creature said. Or, it didn't say it, Michaela didn't hear it with her ears and the beast's lips didn't move, but she somehow heard it. She stopped running and stood beside Curt, clinging to him and halfway hiding behind him. She hated herself for the cowardice, but she couldn't much help the fear.

It seemed Curt heard the beast 'talk,' too. "I've got orders to take command of the army at the top of this mountain." She noted that he didn't deny her servitude. He'd forewarned her that she was going to have to act the part of a slave and he'd have to act the part of the master. He'd been even clearer that it might not be pretty.

"_Do you think I haven't heard that one before?"_ the dragon said, snapping her back to the present.

"I honestly didn't, but I have the orders with me," Curt said, producing a paper from his robes and showing it to the dragon. Michaela had to wonder if the dragon could even read.

Apparently, it could. _"I was looking forward to burning the two of you. Get on," _the dragon ordered and extended a wing to their feet. They walked up the wing and onto the dragon's back, where they sat down, Curt grabbing the underside of the dragon's scales and Michaela wrapping herself around him, hoping they wouldn't be blown off.

They soared over the mountains, covered in forests and capped with green fields covered with large tents and the white and blue banner of the Templar. She didn't know if her shiver was from seeing the camp of her people's enemy or from realizing just how high they were flying. Michaela made a mental note that she loathed flying.

Curt, on the other hand, seemed to be loving it. She remembered him telling her of when he flew machines on his world. She had to wonder if flying on the dragon's back was anything like flying one of those machines. She also again wondered what one of the machines might look like.

The dragon circled over the camps, slowing down and lowing with each pass. Curt nodded in approval. She realized that he must've been evaluating how the dragon flew all along. She had to wonder why. The dragon landed, kneeling down and allowing them off. She let go of Curt as he slid down the side of the beast, extending a hand for her to do the same. She took it and he eased her down. She felt wobbly on her feet as she stood on solid ground. He chuckled. "Happens to everyone the first time they fly." He directed his attention to the dragon. "Who do I need to see?"

"_That tent is the area where they process anything that comes in by air. A runner will show you to the general's tent," _it said, indicating a tent directly in front of them with a claw.

A boy came out of said tent. "What have we here, Roland?" he called to the dragon.

"_I hate to ruin the surprise. Meet Grand General Curtis Lane."_

"Wait, what?" the boy asked, confused. He pointed at Curt. "Him?"

"_Indeed," _the dragon said with a huff. _"I need to get back to patrol. I look forward to seeing how this one turns out," _it said and flew off.

Curt started walking to the boy. Michaela followed. "You heard the beast. Show me to your commander," he said, every bit with the air of a general addressing a subordinate—skipping introductions and formalities—not being kind or courteous in the slightest; a side of him she'd never seen.

"Uh, uh, yessir," the boy stuttered and started leading them. They walked a good ways through the camp, coming to the largest tent in the center of it. "The generals should be inside, sir."

Curt didn't thank him, instead waving him off. He held the flap open for Michaela to go through and entered after her. She figured it was his way of saying _'I'm still the same man. I'm still kind.'_

A group of men leaning over a table all looked up at them at the same time. "And who are you two?" one of them asked.

"I am Grand General Curtis Lane. This is my slave, Michaela."

She hid her wince at her title, the same one she'd suffered under for far too long. _I'd rather you call me 'girlfriend,' honey, _she thought. Fat chance of that happening.

"_Grand_ General?"

"Yes, and you'll do well to remember it, too. Command is dissatisfied with your progress here. My job is to fix that."

"Let me see some paperwork before you go making orders."

Curt fished the papers out of his robe and stroked his newly grown beard as the other man examined them.

"Well. Damn. I guess it is true, then," the other man announced.

Curt just laughed.

* * *

"We already have what you want!" Curt yelled at Neutral.

It didn't care. "How so? I don't see a balance here."

"We're in stalemate! We'll be in stalemate for another hundred years! Stalemate is the closest thing you'll get to balance."

"I want results _now," _it demanded.

"What do you want me to do? I can't do much more than shift my troop positions around as it is!"

"Get me _results. _Charge their lines, cost them lives but lose and retreat, something!"

"I do that, they'll charge up the mountain and push us down the plains. They get to the plains, they'll charge across half of the Human Empire. Call me stupid, but that don't seem like balance to me."

He heard what sounded like a maniacal laugh come from the mask. "I _know _what you and your little girlfriend have been doing every night." It got closer to him and dropped its voice. "You know, Keidran pregnancies start showing after just a few months. You may want to be out of here by then."

Curt snarled and yelled, leaping at the mask and wings, but he felt time resume its course. He sighed and looked around the spacious tent he and Michaela (he'd made sure she stayed with him) had been given for quarters.

He walked over to Michaela, who was sitting at his desk, looking at a situation map (dated at April 29th of 495, it was about a month old), no doubt trying to make some sense of it. He quietly leaned over into her large ear and whispered lower that he could hear himself, "We need to talk in private. It's rather important." They didn't talk in the tent. Neither of them trusted the Templar and both figured that they were listening in on their new Grand General, whom none of them quite trusted, even after a week.

She held up a finger and started going through her robes. She produced one of those blue crystals and stood, holding it to up. She turned to face him directly and motioned for him to come closer. He did, leaning down to meet her small form. He thought she planned on kissing him, though he did wonder exactly what she planned on using the crystal for. She held it in front of her forehead, using her free hand to bring his forehead to meet hers. The crystal held between them by pressure, she let go of it and clasped her hands. He felt the crystal dissolve and then a tingling sensation in his head.

He heard her voice, _"Can you hear me?" _He jumped back a bit in surprise. She didn't say it and her lips didn't move, but he sure heard it. It was almost like he'd thought the words in her voice. It was no thought of his.

"_How did__ you do that?" _he asked, forcing concentration to reply. It wasn't like talking and it wasn't like just thinking. It was something in between.

"_I made the spell myself."_

"_That is very impressive."_

She grinned and now kissed him lightly. _"Well, I sure thoug__ht so."_

She sounded more and more like him with each passing day, he thought. He was sounding more like her, too. _"Can you read any of my thoughts now?"_

"_No, you'll learn to differentiate. Now, what did you want to tell me?"_

"_You're not going to believe me__."_

"_What is it, Curt?" _she asked, sounding somewhat exasperated, though it was hard to tell in their new realm of communication.

"_You know, this feels odd. Sarah was always the one to tell me."_

"_What is it?" _she screamed inside his head. It hurt a bit, actually.

"_I'm not sure how to put this. Michaela, you're pregnant."_

She stifled giggles. _"Yeah, right."_

"_I'm not kidding," _he told her bluntly.

She held laughter in check. _"You better be careful. You know it wouldn't look very good if a general's slave was __laughing in his tent with him, so stop."_

"_Wish I could. If I did, you'd get a heck of a surprise here in a few months. I'm _not _kidding."_

Color drained from behind her fur. _"You aren't, are you? Well... Um... _How_?"_

"_Another of Neutral's wonderful little inc__entives. Don't you love the guy?"_

"_Yeah, _that_."_

* * *

Curt burst into the command tent the next morning. "Alright, we're having a rethink. Command wants results now and I intend to get them." Seeing as neutral _was _his command, he technically wasn't lying.

All the generals sitting around the table looked up at him. "Sir?"

"I'm restructuring the command," he said, smacking the rolled up piece of paper he held down on the table and unrolling it. The paper detailed the new command system, designed so Curt could more efficiently wage modern warfare with the army he'd been given. He'd made it as close to the Air Force system as he could, simply because he knew it, but it had to use the Army names for the ranks; there wasn't much sense in calling an infantryman an airman, was there?

They examined the ranking system. "I understand the need for such detailed levels of ranking, but I don't understand the function of organizing down to the... what did you call it? _Fireteam _level. What purpose could a team of five men serve?"

"Or, for that matter, a _squadron. _What could ten men do on a vast battlefield?"

Curt had forgotten that he'd included a new organization system with the ranking chart. "You'd be surprised, actually. You see, I don't plan on using any conventional warfare. I plan on changing how we do business around here."

"Then what do you plan on doing, oh, Great General?" General Jeremy Simnel, the former commander of the army, asked, loading the question with sarcasm and scorn.

"I'd suggest you adjust your tone, General. My plan is to use the dragons in culmination with our ground forces. The two work together, we can use smaller ground units to cover more ground," Curt answered, loading the response with plenty of scorn himself.

Minor (Lieutenant under the new system) General Lambert spoke up, "I take it you weren't briefed on our situation very well, sir?"

"Not at all, why?"

Simnel butted in, "We were using your tactic. However, the Fuzzballs" -one of the many slang terms for Keidran among the Templar- "have set up these wonderful little weapons in the valley. They're giant crossbows designed to hit dragons. It's one shot, one kill with the things. The arrows use magic so they hone in on their target. That's what's halted us here."

_Verdammt. The wolves have in__vented SAMs. They're smart buggers. _"What's the range of these crossbows? Can you fly above them?"

"Yes, but they have to fly so high that it's good for nothing but reconnaissance."

Curt thought for a second. He grinned devilishly. "I've got a plan. C'mon, let's get to it," he said with a motion at the planning table.

* * *

Michaela walked from her and Curt's tent to the command tent. Curt had hesitantly started having her run errands for him; he said that the other generals were becoming suspicious of why he kept her as a slave. She recalled shrugging and accepting it; she'd known it was too good to last, anyhow. She spotted another Keidran, a Cat, coming out of the command tent. The other Keidran, a female, looked vaguely familiar to Michaela. She was slightly taller than Micheala, with white fur and a black spot across her back.

_Is that? It is! _"Katie?"

The other slave looked up and turned to Michaela. "Jocasta?"

"Yes!" She exclaimed and wrapped Katie in a hug. Katie was one of the many slaves her old master had traded and sold.

"Where have you been these days, Jocasta?"

"Call me by my real name now, call me Michaela."

"Your new master likes that name better?"

"Something like that," Michaela said, knowing better than saying to much. Her old friend still had control spells on her and Michaela had to keep that in mind.

Katie eyed her suspiciously. "Okay, then. I had better go, my master is not patient," she said and hurried off.

Michaela nodded and entered the large tent. "Curt? I have them."

"You have your slaves call you by your first name, general?" one of the older, bearded men asked Curt.

Curt replied simply, "Is that a problem?"

The other man didn't reply.

"I said, _is that a problem, general?"_

"No... Nossir."

"Much better," he said, taking the drawings from Micheala. "Thank you," he said in the open. He continued privately, _"Dear. I love you."_

She nodded, keeping a straight face and returning to her place by the wall of the tent. _"I love you, too."_

"You thank them, too?"

"Just how badly do you want a demotion, general?"

"As badly as you're protective of your slave here."

"Bring one of your slaves in here, then, Simnel, your favorite," Curt told the man, apparently General Simnel.

"Katie!" he called. Michaela shivered. It wasn't cold out.

Katie came in the tent shortly. "Yes, master?" she asked, looking to the ground in respect for the man who desecrated her life.

Curt drew his pistol from his robes and pointed it at the only Keidran in the tent aside from Michaela. "Will you protect your slave now, Simnel? What is this debate worth to you?"

"_Curt! No!" _Michaela cried to him, not moving an inch.

"_I have a point to prove."_

"_She's an old friend. Don't!"_

Curt put the pistol up. "Katie, is it?"

She nodded.

"You now belong to Lieutenant General Lambert."

"What? This is blasphemy!" Simnel cried.

"So, what is your decision, Simnel? Will you give her up?"

"No!"

"Then resign your post."

"I will," Simnel said and grabbed a pen and paper. He started writing.

Curt leaned into the man's face. "How badly are you protective of _your _slave, general?"

Simnel backed down, lowering his head. He knew he'd been beat. "Yes, General Lane." He stopped writing and fished in his pocket, taking out a set of papers and handing them to who Michaela assumed was General Lambert. "She's a good one." Michaela made a mental note that there was no 'so take care of her' appended to that sentence.

Katie turned her nose up and went to stand behind her new master. Michaela grinned to her, as much as she dared say. Katie returned the smile.

"_Th__ank you, Curt."_

"_It was the least I could do."_

Curt, acting like nothing had happened, unrolled one of the papers she'd given him. "This, gentlemen, is part of our rethink. We will be armoring the dragons to the point that they will be immune to the Fuzzball's crossbows."

"That armor will make it to heavy for them to fly," one of the generals said. Michaela noticed that Simnel stayed quiet.

"Then they'll walk, Smith," Curt replied flatly.

"Limit our dragons to the ground? Give up our primary advantage? Sir!" the younger general, apparently Smith, asked.

"Not all of them. Just enough to run a _Blitzkreig."_

They all looked to him with confused looks. Michaela could tell it was German, but that was all she knew.

"It's rather difficult to explain the origin of the word. It means 'lightning war,'" Curt explained. "We use the dragons to advance in front of the troops, break open the lines. The infantry stay behind them, in shelter, until they're needed; the dragons support the infantry, the infantry support the dragons."

The other generals stood in amazement. Michaela was right there with them. How had Curt came up with something so complicated on a moment's notice? It took her a while to realize that he hadn't came up with it, that he was using something from his past world, changing or adapting some part of it. _"How did you come up with that?" _she finally asked him in the privacy of their heads.

"So the infantry would advance behind the dragons, supporting them if, say, enemy infantry tried getting up close and finding flaws in the armor?" Smith asked.

"Correct. And the dragons would spearhead the attack and burst enemy fortifications for our infantry," Curt replied. _"There were machines where I came from, ones that were armored heavily and had big guns. I'm using th__ese dragons like them."_

_Figures. It would be a machine, _Michaela thought. She decided not to tell Curt that one.

"Will the dragons have any weapons?" Lambert, he friend's new master, asked.

"I heard you're the resident engineer here, Lambert," Curt responded.

"Yessir?" Lambert said in the form of a question.

"Then you and I will be making those weapons."

* * *

Michaela pulled handfulls of grass out of the ground, throwing them off to the side or picking the blades to pieces and tossing them off. Katie sat beside her, doing the same. Michaela had honestly forgotten how _boring _life could be sometimes.

Curt and General Lambert were assembling some kind of contraption Curt called a _'polybolos.' _He referred to it as a 'repeating crossbow' when among the other generals. He told her that it was built in ancient times on his world, but he knew how it worked for the most part. He and Lambert sorted out the parts he wasn't so sure about. They started to lift a part and, finding it too heavy, stopped and stepped back. Michaela worried that the men might call her and Katie over to help. Instead, Lambert put a hand to the ground and used magic to pick the piece up.

"He seems like a much better master than Simnel," Michaela said to Katie in hushed tones.

"He is, much better, actually," Katie replied in an equal tone.

"Good. You deserve better."

Katie nodded in dismissive agreement.

Satisfied, Curt and Lambert stepped back and eyed their work. "This one looks good," Curt said. It wasn't the first of the crossbows they'd built.

"Time to test?" Lambert asked.

Curt grinned and nodded.

"Any other man would've had his grunts do the work," Michaela muttered softly.

Katie giggled. "Oliver is the same way," she said. As soon as she realized what she'd said, her eyes shot open wide and she covered her mouth.

_Did she just call him by his first name? _She had. That's when the larger realization struck Michaela. The mere fact that Kaite could do something her master would see as wrong, like call him by his first name in public, meant that she didn't have a control spell. "Katie... Do you..?"

"Do I _what?"_

Michaela dropped her voice as low as she possibly could. "Have a control spell?"

Katie knew she'd been caught. "You won't tell, will you?"

"Of course not."

"Thank you," Katie said. Her face lit up in realization for a second. Michaela had to wonder what Katie realized. The thought was wiped right out of her head as an awful racket came from the crossbow. Curt was winding a crank on the side of it. Arrows (Curt kept telling her they were called 'bolts' on a crossbow) flew out of the front of the contraption, about one every second. They struck a board (a piece of a failed polybolos attempt), boring into it a good ways. Bolts stopped flying out of the repeater and Curt stopped cranking. He and Lambert shook hands and let out shouts of joy. Michaela just shivered. The tools of war were bad enough. She didn't want to see war. No one asked her opinion in the matter before they went off starting a war. No one asked her opinion in the matter before enslaving her, either. _Nor did anyone ask my opinion when they made Curt fight their war. _She stifled a chuckle. _A god hates us._

* * *

Curt felt more at home that he had for a long time. _Okay, since last night with Michaela, _he admitted to himself. He still felt at home, pacing in front of the troops and dragons assembled in front of him. "Y'all are all going to have trouble with this one," he started. "Dragons have a stubborn pride for being the greatest and biggest beasts in the running." The dragons of each crew straightened up. Curt continued, "We humans have the stubborn feeling that we are master over all creatures." The attention the Templar stood at tightened with those words. "I'm not here to be the judge of which assessment is correct." Both groups sagged a bit. "What you have to remember is that here, the dragons carry the weight. They carry the crossbows. They carry the crew. They will penetrate the enemy lines for the infantry." He paused for effect. "However, they could not do this without their human-made armor and weapons. More importantly, they could not do this without their crews. That is my point to this whole ramble. You have to work as a _team. _Human and dragon. You may not like it, but if we plan to win this war, it has to be done."

The human and beast component of each crew looked at him in complete shock. _Dumbfounded shock, _he thought. "Alright, don't just stand there. Crews, get your dragons ready for battle!"

The Templar shook the fog off their heads, the six men of each of the ten crews scrambling, grabbing large pieces of metal and slinging them over their beasts. They hung sheets of metal over the upraised wings of their dragons. In battle, the dragon's wings could be used to shelter troops and as a moving shield. They snapped bands around the throats of the beasts, putting platforms over their backs and mounting the bi layered crossbows (Curt and Lambert had designed a crossbow that had a large polybolos and giant single shot crossbow mounted one over the other), throwing the turrets over that. Additional, smaller polybolos and shields for their crews were mounted on the sides of the beasts. Each team finished in turn, their dragon fully armed, armored and ready for battle.

Curt grinned and checked that his own body armor was straight before walking up to the dragon he'd designated to ride on while training the crews. He strapped a headband with a 1" creek-smooth flat and round stone woven in to the side to his head. It served as a radio. With one touch to the dimple in the side of the stone, whatever he said would be broadcasted to all of his troops without any interference or background noise. Magic was rather nice sometimes—it let him do things that should've required thousands of years of technological advancement. Magic served as his radio net and as the motor that tuned his dragons' turrets (mages sitting behind the crossbows in the turret turned the turret with a spell).

He reached up and touched the dimple in the stone. "Alright, let's see if you boys can organize yourselves into a column and move down to the training grounds I've set up. They are marked on the maps I've given the commander of each crew." He paced about the platform that went around the turret, watching with mild bemusement as each of the commanders tried to organize their dragon into a column with the other magical beasts turned war machines. Curt kept wanting to call each of the dragons a 'tank,' because he'd based them off of and was using them as tanks.

His thoughts were interrupted as a runner—Curt recognized him as the same one that had received him and Michaela when they'd arrived at the camps—came alongside his dragon and flagged him down. Curt touched the stone again, "All halt. Smith, you have command of your troops. Good luck."

"Thanks, sir..." Smith responded slowly as Curt jumped off the side of the dragon. Curt had given the lieutenant general command over all of the ground dragons.

"Yes?" Curt asked the boy.

"Sir, you're just gonna hafta see this'un for yourself," the boy said and handed him a set of papers.

Curt read them. They were a set of transfer documents for _(wow, this is a lot of men) _25,000 men from the King's Army. They didn't have magic, but Curt knew he could work with that, probably better than he could work with the Templar he'd been dealing with. All it meant was that he would have to innovate a bit. Curt liked innovating. "This is good. When do they arrive?"

"Now."

* * *

Curt grinned as the KA troops examined the polybolos they'd been issued. The official designation for them was SMRC, or Shoulder-Mounted Repeating Crossbow. Curt had to remind himself to call them that. Curt picked up the one he was using to demonstrate. He mounted it on his right shoulder, setting it beside his head, lining the dimple carved into the stock up with his shoulder and letting it slide into place. He grabbed the crank handle with his right hand and rammed a magazine into the top. He turned to the side and lined the sights up with a target he'd set up. He started to crank the handle, the weapon snapping bolts off into it with incredible accuracy- thanks, in part, to the rifling system Curt had designed using fins on the bolts and grooves in the SMRC's inch-long loose barrel. When the bolts stopped flying, Curt stopped cranking. "Any questions?" he called to the assembled troops. There were none. "The firing range is this way," he said and lead them to it.

* * *

Michaela saw Curt tiredly shuffle his way into the tent they shared. It was later than he normally got back, which was _really _saying something. _"Where've you been?" _she asked.

"_Can't exactly do night-fighting training in the day, honey."_

"_Oh," _she said, trying to sound as disappointed as she could.

"_Something wrong?"_

She wasn't sure how to answer. Something was wrong, but she didn't want to say it to him; he couldn't very well help it. _"No."_

"_The heck there ain't. You ain't even talking and I can tell."_

"_Yeah, I guess so."_

He motioned for her to continue.

"_It seems like you're gone all the time and I can almost never come with you. I__ don't like that. I sit here, all alone, wondering if you're alright, wondering if you've been caught." _It'd been like that for almost a month. Her belly was starting to swell with the baby that grew inside it.

He sighed as he sat down on his bed. She sat down on her tiny bunk. He'd told her that he would've slept on her bunk and let her sleep on his had his form actually fit on the tiny bunk. _"Sarah always had the same problem. Heck, every military wife had—__has—__the __same problem."_

She was rather surprised that he even thought of her _like _a wife. _"Oh."_

He smiled and walked over to her. He picked her up and carried her over to his larger bed. _"You think I could make up for it?"_

She grinned wildly as he sat her down. _"If you try-"_

She was cut off as someone burst into the tent. Curses ran through her mind. Curt _had _put up the 'do not disturb' sign, hadn't he? "Well, well, Grand General Lane," the voice of General Lambert cackled lowly. "What have we here? A quick boot out of command? Yes, I think so."

Curt growled as he stood up to his full impressive height and eyed the lower-ranking general. "Well, how badly are you going to blackmail me?" he whispered as Michaela saw Katie enter the tent.

Michaela suddenly figured out what Katie's realization had been almost a month earlier when Curt and Lambert were testing the first polybolos. When Michaela had said she wouldn't tell that Katie didn't have a control spell, she'd as good as admitted that she didn't have a control spell on her, herself. Katie had told her master.

Lambert chuckled. "What are you doing here, you outsider?"

"It's a long story. I've been given no option," he said and told Lambert about Neutral's threats. He left off the latest incentive; the one that grew inside her. "I just want to get Michaela home," he finished.

Lambert eyed him. "You're going to Fox territory?"

"Yes."

"I believe I have enough against you to join you."

"I would've let you come along without that, son. Although, for what you've got against me, I'll let you keep the dragon we escape on. I imagine you'll want to get to Cat territory," he said with a motion to Katie.

Lambert stood there dumbfounded. Michaela giggled. "Not used to kind men, are you... sir?" she added, perhaps a second too late.

Lambert grinned. "I like the introduction I've been given."

* * *

Curt paced up and down the back of the dragon, impatiently waiting for all the men he'd handpicked as paratroopers to assemble. They finally did, about eight minutes behind schedule. He shrugged. He was beginning to expect tardiness of the fools; it seemed they were so cocky that they thought being on-time was too good for them. Curt was going to prove that it wasn't the best idea for them and that he'd not have it. "You bloody fools are eight minutes late. Those are the ten minutes I'd planned to use in re-iterating my previous lectures. Now, I'm just going to skip it. You do it wrong and die, it ain't my fault."

They stared at him blankly.

_That should teach 'em, _he thought. "What are you waiting for? Get up here!"

They stared at him blankly before they rushed aboard the dragon, strapping themselves in. "Got our work cut out for us, don't we, General?" Lambert asked him from another dragon over the radio-like magic stones.

Curt touched the dimple on his stone. "Indeed we do." Curt had put Lambert in charge of the paratroopers for reasons of convenience in their escape.

The Templar finally finished strapping themselves in. Curt did the same, called to clear the runway (with the weight the armor and men put on them, the dragons couldn't take off vertically), and told their dragon—Roland, no less—to take off and head for the Human plains, where Curt and his staff had set up a little exercise for the twenty men aboard his dragon, not counting the men on the other four dragons, which were loaded with equal numbers of men. Curt was strapped in so he faced the men. He tapped the stone on his right side—the one that interfaced with only his men, "I've set up a training exercise farther along. It is as close as I can make it to the scenario you'll be facing in the real deal."

They all nodded, suddenly (and finally) attentive. Curt's plan was to use the paratroopers to take out the AAA (Anti-Aircraft Artillery) the Wolves had managed to engineer; namely a rather extensive system of crossbows and catapults. They would be dropped far behind these systems and would flank them. Curt had already started giving orders to run reconnaissance flights with four or five dragons over Wolf territory. He wasn't doing it for the information; if the enemy saw flights like the one he was making every day, they wouldn't pay it any mind. At least, that was the plan.

"_We are nearing the drop area, sir," _Roland told him.

"Ready all positions!" Curt called.

The Templar hooked a line from their pack to a line that ran along the dragon's back. They stood up and turned around, facing the dragon's tail. Curt's pack had a manual release, so he simply unstrapped and waited for Roland's word.

"_We're there."_

"Go! Go! Go!" Curt screamed at the top of his lungs. The Templar plunged off the side, some having to be pushed by those behind them, but most simply walking off the side, as they'd been instructed. Curt watched their parachutes deploy perfectly and grinned. "I believe you can handle yourself, Roland. Farewell. See you when we finish." He charged towards the back of Roland, running and jumping off the beast's back. He felt the air slam him, the ground fall, his horizons expand. He kept his hands carefully tucked beside him, closing in on the small sea of round parachutes that represented his two squadrons. When he finally neared them, he reached up and grabbed the rip chord. The lines ripped into his sides as he slowed down. He grinned, loving the thrill he'd been without for a good, long time.

He followed them down, landing on firm ground with a _thud. _He stood up. He was unarmed aside from the pistol and his bootkinfe, both of which he kept concealed. The Templar were minimally armed; they didn't need much with magic (Minimal need for equipment was the reason Templar, not KA men, were his paratroopers). Curt had to look like he knew magic himself or he would've carried a crossbow like he'd issued the KA men. He checked around him. None of the men had managed to hang themselves on a tree, though a couple had managed to injure themselves in landing. Nonetheless, he had a mission to accomplish. He unhooked and buried his parachute, standard practice. His men did the same. "Remember now, next time we do this, it'll be at night. Lieutenant, you need to run this show for yourself. Remember, I won't be here in the real picture. I'm just here to watch and make sure y'all do this right."

"Yessir. Move out, men," the young Lieutenant said with a motion to the east.

"Wrong way, son," Curt corrected and re-rallied the men west.

"How did I manage that?" the younger officer asked Curt under his breath.

"Remember that the exercises are mirror imaged from the real deal; we left from the other side of the mountain. We own this side." Curt still felt it odd to include himself with the Human Empire; he really loathed it at some intellectual level. _Nichevo. Stay focused, _he told himself.

They closed in on the first crossbow, who's crew was still turned to the sky. The lieutenant had split the squadrons up, sending one to another crossbow and coming with the other to the one they crept toward. He waved one fireteam around to the other side of the crossbow's crew. Curt closed in with the rest of the men. He could see the crew, Templar who'd been briefed on the nature of the training exercise, but never told that ground forces would assault them. Again, hopefully just like their Wolf counterparts in the real deal would be.

The lieutenant made the first blow, hitting the commander of the crossbow crew with a nonlethal bolt of neon blue energy. The rest of the squadron pelted the rest of the crew before they could even turn around.

Curt stood up with the rest of the squadron. High-fives and laughter were exchanged. The crew of the simulated crossbow turned to him. "That _was not _fair, sir!"

"I'm training these guys, not you guys, son," Curt said. "Hopefully, the Fuzzballs will be just as oblivious to our presence as you were. Here's hopin', anyhow."

They nodded, accepting it. "Permission to return to camp?"

"Granted."

The crew gathered in a circle and disappeared in a blue flash. Curt had wanted to use teleportation spells for delivering his men behind enemy lines, but apparently, magic didn't work that way.

He shrugged. "To the next one, let's go!" he called. He somewhat anticipated and somewhat dreaded the day of the final battle. It would come soon enough.


	7. Chapter 7

Alright, guys, final chapter! I'll be uploading the epilogue here shortly. Also, I did a little experimenting in this chapter, and think it turned out well. Anyhow, enjoy!

* * *

Michaela watched Curt straighten his armor. She sighed and straightened her robes so they better hid the bulge in her belly.

Hearing her sigh, he turned around. _"It'll be alright. It __ain't like I ain't done this before."_

"_It's not that, honey."_

"_Then what?" _he asked with a raised eyebrow.

She hesitated. How was she to put it? _"Everything," _she finally decided. That put it simply and embodied all her worry. That was what she wanted.

"_Th__at would entail..?"_

"_Curt, I'm three months pregnant. In the middle of a warzone. We don't have a permanent home and we're gonna be on the run here before long. I don't want this life for any child of mine."_

"_You got any better idea? I'd love to hear it," _he snapped. It was easy to tell when he was stressed._ "I'm doing the best I can. We're getting away today. I _will _get you home."_

Curt had a way with words. A way of telling her that everything would be okay. That wasn't what he was telling her now. She didn't like that. He was just being truthful and she knew that, but sometimes, she thought, she'd rather have lies. _"I understand that. I know. I'm still worried."_

"_I am, too, believe me, I am," _he told her. If he was, it didn't show. Perhaps that was why he'd phrased it the way he had.

She shook her head. _"What am I supposed to so in the meantime?" _

"_Wait for me. I know it'll seem like a lifetime. Just breathe. I'll be back soon." _He walked out of the tent.

Even if he had turned around and been back right then and there, it wouldn't've been soon enough for her. She sat on the bed and waited, anyhow.

* * *

Curt walked up Roland's back. It was early in the morning, about 0400. The Templar dared not be late that morning. He strapped himself in and they did the same.

He touched the dimple in the stone on the side of his head, the one that connected with all of his forces. "Are all ground forces assembled?"

"The ground dragons are ready," Smith reported.

"Infantry and King's Army men are ready," Dutton reported.

"Good, y'all start moving now, then," Curt ordered. Provided he and the other generals had laid the timing down properly, the ground forces would arrive right at dawn broke. Typically, Curt would've opted for a night fight, but the Keidran could see significantly better in the night than his forces could. The first airborne troops, however, would accomplish their tasks at night, needing to have the AAA network down by the time the ground forces reached the enemy lines. If the AAA was down, the dragons could provide air support and move troopers into flanking positions. Curt put his hand back to the stone, "Air forces?"

"Assembled," Lambert reported.

"Let's get this show on the road." He took his hand off the stone and raised his voice to a shout. "Clear runway! Let's go, Roland!"

The dragon huffed and broke out in a run, extending his wings and bolting into the skies. Curt let out a sigh, inaudible in the rush of air and beating of wings. Michaela had a right to worry, whether or not he liked it. Then again, it wasn't like he'd lied—he was downright worried himself. However, unlike her, he was worried for the long term. He supposed that being back into his natural environment was what had gotten him back into that habit. He knew that, somehow, some way, he'd get the three—that was a scary thought to have, if there was any—of them back to her home, safe and sound. What he didn't know was where from there. What would he do to keep them on their feet; make a living, as old as he was? He wouldn't have to worry about that for long, only until the kids _(Kid_s?_ what are you thinking, Curt?)_ were raised—which, given Keidran aging wouldn't take that long—but the more important question remained. What would the kid (or kids) do? They wouldn't really belong anywhere. Humans probably wouldn't accept them. Keidran probably wouldn't, either. He sighed. He hated Neutral. Not only did he have to raise _another _kid, but he didn't know what that kid would do—heck, he didn't know what that kid would be. As he'd said time and time again, Curt no longer cared about himself. His kid? He worried more about that one.

Roland shook him from his thoughts, _"Sir, we are nearing the drop zone."_

Curt hoped the beast was right—he couldn't see squat in the early morning hours—and ordered his men to get ready. Curt would stay strapped in for this one. The Templar were ready to drop faster than ever. Being in the real deal, when their necks were really on the line, had that effect on soldiers. Curt had seen it time and time again.

"_We've __arrived."_

"Go! Go! Go! Good luck!"

The Templar jumped off Roland's back into the night, falling inside the black. Curt grinned and stood, feeling the air rush by him as he looked down into the night. He couldn't see anything and he probably wouldn't for another fifteen minutes. He just grinned and waited for what he figured would be the only thing he could see. Ten minutes _(that was fast) _later, as Roland circled the battlefield, he saw flashes of blue light. Streaks lanced across the ground. Lashes flailed, striking a large, blacked out object, which laid in pieces seconds later. A glowing blue flag was raised, telling him that the first crossbow was down. Seconds later, a similar spectacle occurred at a nearby AAA site. All over the battlefield, blue lances struck out, hitting unsuspecting Wolf crews. Blue lashes clashed with wood. Glowing blue flags were raised. Mages slipped off into the night.

By the last couple of batteries, the Wolves were fighting back. The Templar triumphed anyhow. _Now _that _is how yo__u do airborne spec ops, _Curt thought, recalling the botched version he'd had to fly cover for in North Korea. He shook the fog of painful memories off his head. All of the Wolf AAA batteries outside of the Wolf fortifications were down, which was a very good sign—the real assault could begin when day broke.

He touched the stone on the right side of his head. "How's it lookin' down there, Lambert?"

"Good, sir. As you can see, we've completed our primary objective. We're getting in place for the second."

"Well done, son."

Curt waited patiently. "Sir, secondary objectives are completed. I'm going to get back on my dragon and command from up there."

Curt grinned. That was part of the escape plan. "Understood," he said. "See you up here. The skies are clear." All they needed was a pinch of daylight to go through with the plan.

Soon enough, they got their wish. The sun rose to reveal the Ground Dragons creeping out of the forest and into the clearing around the Wolf fortresses. Crossbows and catapults pelted the lumbering beasts. They stood defiant. Lambert and his dragon circled above the battlefield with Roland and the other dragons of the assault force. More dragons were joining them in preparation for the upcoming battle.

Curt touched a stone in a pouch in his belt. It was special, made by Lambert for the occasion. "Lambert? You ready?" he asked quietly, hopefully below what Roland could hear.

"Yessir. Let's get out of this blinking place."

"You're going back to base?" Curt shouted loudly over the wind. "I should get back, too. Roland can stay here and provide air support." He paused as he unstrapped himself, "You got that, Roland?"

"_I do. Look forward to seeing the savages run."_

"Good hunting," Curt said, breaking off to a run. He jumped. He felt, for a moment, suspended in air. Roland's slipstream hit him and he was shot backwards, but he felt that same sheer thrill and the rush of wind on his face. Lambert's dragon came up under him. It swooped right as he was about to collide, making what would've been a painful landing gentle and elegant. He strapped in as the dragon headed back to their mountaintop base. Curt let out a sigh of relief. It was almost over. He was about to make good on all his promises to Michaela. Finally.

* * *

The Templar that stormed into Michaela and Curt's tent didn't look happy.

"Well, well, if it ain't the general's girlfriend packing their bags," one of them said.

"Isn't it sad when you can't trust your own bloody generals not to be in bed with the enemy?" another asked.

She froze, midway through folding a shirt.

"What are we supposed to do with her?"

"Hold her 'tll the Great General" -he loaded the title with sarcasm- "returns. He'll have an ambush waiting on him when he does."

She had to tell Curt somehow. How, though? He was out of range of the spell she'd made. She would just have to wait until he was and alert him then. She could tell when he was close enough. She realized that she hadn't moved yet. She slowly sat the shirt into the bag and moved to get the next one. With any luck, they'd let her keep doing what she was doing.

Luck wasn't with her that day. One of the soldiers laughed, "Look, she's actin' like we ain't even here!"

"I'll fix that," another said and walked over to her, palms glowing.

She tried fighting him, but as soon as one of the palms touched her, all she saw was black.

* * *

Lambert's dragon touched ground in the center of the Templar camps. Curt was off and running before its wings had stopped beating. Lambert was off and running for his tent in short order.

The instant Curt rounded the corner to face his tent, he knew something was up. The tent flap was still open. Michaela would've wanted to keep what she was doing—packing their bags—secret. He reached for his pistol. _Not a good idea in the event you're w__rong, _he told himself, drawing the sword he'd finally managed to acquire. He held it in one hand and pulled his signal mirror out with the other. He skirted the side of the tent, coming up to the opening. He used the mirror to see inside. Michaela, the main one he paid attention to, laid curled up on the floor. He couldn't tell if she was breathing. Six Templar stood around, no doubt waiting for him to burst in. _Gonna hafta try harder than that, _he thought with a smile.

He pocketed the signal mirror and grabbed his knife. He took in a deep breath and rolled around the corner. The Templar inside were instantly alert. Not alert enough. The knife flew out of his hand and straight into a jugular vein. He kept moving, spinning the sword in his hand. He thrust it right below the stomach plate of the nearest mage. He spun around and swung at another. He wasn't met with so much success that time. The Templar blocked his blow with an armored sleeve. The other hand was shoved between cracks in Curt's armor.

"_Kacke," _Curt muttered.

There was an explosion and Curt felt himself fly back. He flew into one of the tent's canvas sides and fell outside of it. He felt the warm trickle of blood on his stomach. He cursed, wanting to ball up and wait until it was all over. However, he didn't plan on dying that day. He stood up as fast as he dared to, ducking under the tent flap silently as the Templar ran out of the tent to finish him. He sheathed his sword and picked Michaela's limp body off the ground (thank God, she still had a pulse) and began to quietly exit the tent via the rear. As he stood up and looked around, he realized how vastly bad of a decision he'd made. The brunt of the Templar guards stood, looking at him. He gently sat Michaela down and drew his sword.

He knew he had about a snowball's chance in Hell of winning, but he didn't plan on going down without a fight. The Templar, seeming to realize this, let out of chorus of light laughter. He shrugged, figuring he could kill at least two before they killed him. With that grim note, he charged, dodging lances and lashes of blue. He caught one Templar under the neck. Barely shifting the sword as he ran, he hit the second in the side, between gaps in misfitted armor plates. He flipped the sword in his hands, the blade pointing in front of him. It stabbed his third victim thought the armpit.

By that time, the lances of energy had gotten through his armor. He felt the pain swell over him as lance after lance of blue struck him, boring into him, stopping him from running. He fell to his knees. More pain, more damage. He collapsed.

As the black closed in, he thought, _I got_ _one more than I figured I'd get..._

* * *

Michaela opened her eyes slowly and painfully. What had happened? _Oh yeah, that Templar knocked me out. _Had he ever, too. She suddenly realized that she was no longer in the tent, but instead in a grassy field. What had landed her in a field? She looked down below her on the hill, finding a crowd of Templar _(crap...) _circled around something, doing what looked like kicking it.

It took her a second to realize that it was Curt they were beating. _No! No! They can't! _No, she wouldn't let them. Not Curt. Not the father of her child. Not that day. Not any day.

She stood up, suddenly very awake. She reached in her pocket and grabbed a handful of crystals (Lambert had given her a great many) and let them dissolve into her. She literally glowed as she walked near them. Pebbles were lifted off the ground and thrown back down again as she walked over them.

"Hey!" she called, her voice suddenly booming and powerful.

All the Templar seemed to turn at the same time. She ginned savagely, making a great whip of manna. She slashed at the crowd of Templar, hitting them with a deafening _thud _and throwing them all away. She kept walking slowly toward them, throwing more energy and making more lashes, striking out, whipping them and the ground all the same. Claws formed on tendrils of manna, cutting her victims to ragged pieces. She beat and hit them, over and over again.

The glow ceased and the pebbles fell back to the ground. The power had been used. She sighed in relief; taking in that much energy was dangerous. Remembering what she'd came for, she ran to Curt's limp body, laying curled up in the center of the field. She grabbed more handfuls of crystals, examining the damage. _Terrible, _she thought. Nearly every bone in his body was broken, his ribs shattered, organs bleeding or shattered, disintegrated entirely. His skin was covered in deep, concentrated burns from the magic's power. She started an intense healing session.

* * *

General Oliver Lambert stared the two Templar facing him straight in the eyes.

"You didn't suspect a thing, eh, general?" one asked.

"You and Lane were good buddies! How could you not know?" The other added.

"The fact that General Lane didn't have control spells on his slave and that he was having a love affair with said slave was beyond me," Oliver said flatly. "How did you _expect _me to know that, son? That's the kind of thing you keep under wraps." Oliver didn't add that he was speaking from experience, at least on the former crime.

The Templar didn't hesitate, "A mage as skilled as you can read minds, sir."

Oliver hid a wince, they had him. He'd read Katie's mind to figure out that Michaela didn't have any spells on her. "It's not exactly polite to read the minds of your superiors. Unlike some people, I never got in the habit."

"That's not saying you didn't," one of them, the shorter, retorted.

"In order to attain the rank of Grand General, one has to be a very skilled mage. Mages so skilled are capable of telling when their mind is being read," Oliver said, tired of arguing with the fools.

"We have reason to believe that Lane isn't capable of magic at all," the taller of the pair grinned.

"Do you? I have reason to believe that I have a battle to win," Oliver returned, dismissing them with an impatient wave.

"Really, now?" One smirked.

"You're under arrest for high treason, General Lambert."

"The heck I am," he said with two lighting fast pinpoints of energy to their hearts. The fools collapsed. "C'mon, Katie, time to leave!" he called.

She ran out of the back of the tent, a section he'd designated for her, handing him his bag. He took it, stepping over the bodies and running out to his waiting dragon. Oliver knew that Curt had to be in trouble if the Templar knew of his relationship with Michaela.

* * *

"_No! Don't die on me, honey," _Curt heard an unfamiliar voice call from afar as he slowly woke up. He shook the fog of the unpleasant dream away from his head and rolled over, trying to go back to sleep. Alarms sounded and klaxons blared before he had the chance. He jumped straight up, his bare feet hitting the cold concrete floor. He grabbed his tablet off its charger, sunk into the wall, reading the briefing on it as he suited up for flight. A group of bogies were headed towards the front lines, closing in rapidly. They were either North Korean or Chinese supersonic stealth planes of an unknown type. Because they were stealth, their exact number and location was unknown. Heck, as good as the Gooks (the resident military slang for most any Asian) were getting, he couldn't be sure that the planes were even _there._

"_General! Are you alright? You two, help me get him on the dragon!" _he heard another foreign voice call. He shook the fog away from his head, put the tablet in a large center front pocket made just for it, and started down the corridor to the tarmac. His squadron was right behind him, jogging with him.

"_C'mon, let's get out of here!" _he heard the same far away voice call.

_Verdammt, man! Focus. What is up with you today? _He yelled at himself, finishing the startup of his F-35A/2, locking the tablet into the center panel of the cockpit. The tablet placed his personal flight characteristics into the plane's computer and told it that he had permission to fly. It told him his weapons compliment for the flight; six radar guided (RG) missiles, four infrared heat-seeking and two laser guided (LG) missiles, along with 200 rounds for the internal GAU-12 25-mm cannon. He throttled up, rolling out onto the runway, leading his squadron. He locked the brakes, throttling all the way up and releasing them. The fighter roared down the short runway, thrust vectoring assisting it in taking off with so little room. He tore into the sky, barely over the tree canopy as he lifted off, ruddering towards the incoming enemy fighters. He checked his HUD again, maxing his throttle out as he did so.

"Wait until we're probably in range to engage your aircraft's radar, over," he told his squadmates.

"Roger, wilco," they all replied at roughly the same time.

With a closing rate of almost four times the speed of sound, they didn't have to wait long. He could hear a beating, thumping sound in the distance, almost like he'd heard the voices. He worried that it could be something wrong with this aircraft. None of his screens showed any problems. He shrugged and locked onto the leading target, the six enemy planes clear on his screen. His screen showed his squad mates lock on the other targets. He rippled fired four missiles, all of his radar guided but two (most wouldn't make the mark anyhow), and jerked the stick back as far as it would go, climbing into the sky. He saw with a grin that his squadron had done the same. He grimaced a bit when he saw that Collins had only got off three missiles. Curt suspected that it was a jam or else a malfunction somewhere in the systems.

His HUD turned a light red and quiet alarms sounded. Someone had a lock on him. He went through some commands and changed the electronic countermeasure (ECM) and stealth settings on the various touch screens in the cockpit and watched the alarms vanish. He grinned. The enemy targets fanned out in evasive maneuvers as his squadron's missiles closed in on them. Two fighters vanished off the screen. The other four flew despite. He shook his head and changed missile types. New alarms sounded. Another plane had a lock on him. He shook his head again and changed a few of the stealth system's settings. It didn't work. He sighed; the F-35 had the best ECM systems of any aircraft NATO fielded, and yet the Gooks were still managing to outwit them. The quiet alarms got louder and the soft red got brighter. A missile had been fired at him. He waited a split second before diving for the deck, ejecting flares and chaff, not sure what kind of missile trailed him.

The trailing missile punched through the cloud of chaff and exploded, rocking his fighter slightly. He shook his head with a curse and leveled out. The four fighters were rapidly closing in on him. He acquired a faint infrared lock on the closest fighter and fired two missiles, switching to radar guided and firing two more. He rolled the plane around a bit, hopefully shaking off any potential locks, and switched to laser guided missiles. The only problem with LG missiles is that they required he keep the enemy aircraft in his visual field. The missiles were terribly hard to shake, though. He fired one at a farther target, keeping his helmet turned towards them—to the side of his aircraft. He grinned, recalling his F-35 instructor saying, "In this fighter, maneuvering and orientation are irrelevant. If you can place an enemy fighter in your visual field, you can hit it."

Curt had found that, once the enemy got close enough, maneuvering was still very relevant. At distance, though, not much could beat the F-35, especially for versatility. His HUD turned soft red again. He went through some commands and changed some ECM settings. It went away. He kept focus on the enemy aircraft his LG missile honed in on. It struck with a flash from the distance. He rolled around, again facing the enemy fighters, of which only three remained. He grinned; so far, his squadron hadn't taken a single loss. There were four of them, he and his wingman, a South Korean named Dizon, and Collins and his wingman, Powell.

The plan to win the air war over North Korea was to take at least five enemy fighters for every one Allied fighter lost. Curt was working on his fifth kill. Collins was working on his fourth, unless he missed his guess. Curt saw several missiles, the radar showed eight, headed for Collins and his wingman. "Collins and Powell, break formation! Make your signatures smaller and try to get out of that lock, out," Curt practically yelled through the radio. Collins and Powell broke off each other, streaking apart in the sky, tearing for the ground. The missiles were right behind them. "Dizon, on my six. We need to try and help those two, over."

"Yessir!"

Curt engaged his radar jamming systems for a couple of seconds and flicked them back on. None of the missiles on Colin nor any honing in on Powell lost their track. He cursed. As small of an infrared profile as the F-35s had, Curt bet that the missiles were laser guided. If Curt could just get the enemy planes to lose their track of his squad mates, he could save them. He thought for a split second. As close as the enemy planes were, they were almost within gun range. That meant that Curt could spend a few missiles. He turned to face and locked onto on of the enemy planes, firing an RG missile and a IR heat-seeker at one. He switched targets and fired his last RG and IR missiles. He decided to save the last LG missile.

"Powell, fly under them, I'm going to fly over them, over."

"Roger that, out," he replied and dove for the deck.

Curt pulled the stick back, heading for the sky.

"_What happened?"_

"_There were so many... They beat him," _voices again called from afar. What _was _wrong with him?

The fighters, Chinese J-20s with KPAF (the North Korean air force) markings, streaked under him. He rolled the fighter over on its left side as they passed below. Still on his side, he looked to the aircraft and fired his last missile, a LG. The enemy planes started to run out of his visual range. He punched the left rudder into the floor, the thrust vectoring systems flipping the plane over, by its nose, to face the enemies. Dizon fired a few missiles, too. Curt assumed them to be his last. The Gook pilots ducked and dodged. Curt's missile found its mark, scoring a clean kill. Dizon's missiles weren't so lucky. They went straight through the explosion of the plane Curt had hit. Curt should've seen that they'd locked onto the same aircraft and stopped the kid, but he didn't think to. Two of the missiles on Powell lost track. Curt let out a small sigh of relief.

Collins wasn't so lucky. The missiles behind him hit their mark. Curt cursed and tried gaining some ground on the Gook planes, diving for speed. He was almost within gun range. The sole missile on Powell found its mark. _Just me and __Dizon... _He'd ran out of time to down the enemy planes before losing his other squadmen. He saved the guilt, the pain and sadness, for later.

"_C'mon, General! Wake up!"_

He shook his head and kept intent. Dizon fired a missile, hitting the second, trailing, aircraft cleanly. Curt grinned.

Suddenly, the enemy just wasn't there. He looked up, where he looped tightly. _Verdammt! A Kulbit maneuver! _The enemy soon finished the tight loop, directly behind he and Dizon. A string of curses left Curt's lips. He only saw a missile for a second before it hit Dizon. For him, a stream of tracers walked its way across the sky. He rolled around, cutting the throttle, jerking the stick to the left and flooring the rudder to the right. He skidded across the sky. _You want an ol__d school dogfight? I can do that, pal. You're gonna pay for the lives you've taken. _He jerked the stick to the other side, maxing the throttle for a second to allow thrust vectoring maximum advantage, and cutting it again, whipping the aircraft around on little more than its own length. The 'pipper' (the automatic, moving gunsight) locked on the enemy aircraft. His thumb found the depressor for the cannon. A burst of tracers streaked at the Gook. They missed. The enemy fighter shot over him. Curt maxed the throttle again and kept a track on the enemy aircraft, waiting for it to pull around on his tail. It never did.

He cursed, rolled over, and pulled the stick back in a split S. As he leveled out, in the opposite direction, the HUD instantly identified the Gook streaking away. _What is he doing? _Curt wondered. If he wanted to leave the fight, Curt thought that he would head towards his home turf, wouldn't he? _Apparently, not. _If only he had one last missile. Suddenly, the enemy made an about face with an Immelman turn. _That makes a whole lot more sense. _His HUD turned a pale red as the enemy gained radar lock. Curt didn't think much of it; the Gook was out of missiles, anyhow. They closed rapidly.

Curt was meters from gun range when the soft red got a lot brighter. _What! The Gook still has a missile? _The pipper got a lock and he depressed the trigger. The guns didn't miss that time. Only a few tracers made their mark, but that was all it took. He pulled another high-speed split S to no avail. He ejected chaff and flares. No effect. He reached below and beside him and grabbed a red lever. He jerked on it and heard the cockpit explode and shoot off. The slipstream slapped him as he flew out and felt himself crushed by the massive force of the ejection. The missile hit his fighter under him. The explosion sent him flying higher and the seat into a tumble. Shrapnel dug into his flesh, causing what looked like pretty bad injuries (well, that's what they felt like, anyhow). He and the seat started falling, its weight leveling the two of them out. The parachute deployed and he floated slowly down into the canopy below. He thanked God that he was in South Korean jungle and was safe from the Hell on Earth that composed the North Korean POW camp system.

He crashed into the canopy, the seat breaking the first limb. How high _was _he if the chute got stuck _(how far do I have to climb down this verdammt tree)_? He took off his helmet and leaned over the side of the seat as it fell. A branch seemingly leapt up and smacked him in the head. Darkness followed.

He slowly and painfully opened his eyes to a bright, clear sky. It rolled by at what seemed like a fast pace to him. He could tell he was laying on his back, facing up, and that air rushed by. Was he on a rescue chopper? No, where the heck was the ceiling? The beating of the rotors? Instead, there was a loud, clear thumping noise in its place. It sounded like what he'd heard in his aircraft earlier, but closer. _Must be something in my ears,_ he thought.

Someone leaned over him. No, not someone, something. It seemed like a cross of a cat and a human; furry, triangular ears perched on top of its head, with shoulder-length black hair and a white face and chest. He thought he saw the edges of a black spot on its back. "Michaela!" it called. That name sounded familiar. It seemed like someone who was important to him for some reason. "He's awake! He's alive!"

Another of the things, this one like a fox and human as opposed to a cat, leaned over him for half a second and wrapped him in a hug. "Oh, honey, you're alright. I thought I'd lost you."

He pushed her away. "Who... Better yet, _what _are you?"

She recoiled, looking defeated, hollow, empty. "How... How... Do you... How do you not know?"

"That was a pretty hard hit I took on the way down. Give me a few minutes," he muttered and sat up. He didn't… couldn't… believe what he saw. The thumping noise he'd heard was coming from the wings of a... _Is that a dragon? _He rested on the back of the same beast, flying over a set of mountains. He fought the urge to black out again. "Alright, where am I? This looks like a long way from North Korea."

A (normal) man in robes sitting near the front of the beast responded, "Flying over the border mountains, headed towards Fox turf. You're trying to get Michaela here home, remember?" He asked with a gesture at the fox-thing.

"No, actually, I don't," he responded flatly.

The fox-thing, apparently Michaela, lit up in realization. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I was flying intercept against a group of... six, I think, KPAF fighters. I was shot down and had to eject. I was hit in the head by a limb as I went through the canopy."

They all stared at him blankly. They didn't have a clue what he was talking about, did they? "General," Michaela addressed the man in robes, "I think he's forgotten all the way back to when he was on his old world." She redirected her attention to Curt. "Do you remember who you are? How old?"

"Captain Curtis Lane, USAF. I'm 32." _Rank, name, date of birth, serial number only, son. __This could be some fancy Gook interrogation tactic._

"I thought he was a general?" the other man, apparently a general himself, said.

"No, not twenty one years ago, he wasn't," Michaela said.

_Wait, what? That would make me... 53... _He put a forehand to his head and shook it. "Oh, well... This... Sucks."

"Well, honey, at least you remember _who _you are, if not _when _you are," Michaela said.

"Yeah, _that. _He looked around him. I've gathered you're Michaela. You two are going to have to introduce yourselves."

"Katie," the cat-like thing said with a bow.

"Lieutenant General Oliver Lambert, but, for the gods' sakes, call me 'Oliver.'"

_Wait a second... _"You use the same ranking system..." _That can't be right._

"You... you implemented it, sir. You don't rem... Oh, right."

"_Verdammt _amnesia."

"Still the same old Curt," Michaela said with a 'd called him Curt. No, it wasn't any fancy Gook probe—she knew what he went by. She also seemed to know that he frequently dropped into German to curse. He nodded slightly with that pleasant revelation.

Oliver suddenly looked up and behind them. "They're following us!"

"_Who _is following us?"

"Templar dragons."

"We're running from them to get me home, dear," Michaela interjected.

"Ah. Will we be able to outrun them?"

"No, I doubt it," Oliver said.

"Will we be able to fight capably?"

"How am I supposed to know? There's never been combat between human-commanded dragons before."

Curt grinned. "You're in luck. I happen to be an expert in areal combat."

"_How is a human such an ex__pert?" _he heard a loud, deep voice say. He didn't hear it with his ears, but he heard it. He assumed it to be the dragon they were on.

"Long, long story. Give me a chance, at least. Do you have some way I could control you?"

"_I'm a bloody shape shifter, wh__at do you think?"_

"In that case, why don't you make yourself faster and more maneuverable?'

"_Never thought about that," _it said and suddenly got smaller. Its back flattened out and wings changed shape. Its tail became longer and taller, narrower; like the vertical stabilizer on an aircraft. He could see massive muscles throbbing in its back. Curt nodded when he realized that they were positioned just perfectly for maximum leverage on the wings.

"Now then, for a set of controls," Curt muttered, scanning the dragon's back. He grinned and straddled the dragon's neck somewhat awkwardly. "Alright, follow me closely." He touched one of the beast's scales with his right hand. "Make this into a stick projecting up. Would you be able to feel if I moved it?"

"_A lot," _it said, making said scale a joystick.

"Good," he said and touched another with his left hand. "Another here." Another stick appeared. "Now," he said, taking the right one into hand, "if I move this, correlate it to how you move. If I move it right, roll right. Left, roll left. Forward, go down. Back, pull up. Make sense?"

It took them a few minutes to get the control scheme sorted out, including creating scales for rudder controls and using the left stick as a throttle. By the time they had them sorted out, the... Templar, right?.. dragons were right on their tail.

Curt grimaced. "What's your name, dragon? I want to know who I am fighting beside."

"_Charlemagne."_

"Alright, then Charlemagne, best of luck." He raised his voice. "Everyone else, strap in!" They did so. "What kind of weapons do we have?"

"_Teeth. Claws. Fire. Magic. I think General Lambert has one of your repeating crossbows with him."_

Curt rather expected the first three. Magic and his... "Wait, _my _repeating crossbows?"

"You called them _polybolos _in private," Michaela provided. He'd recreated an ancient Greek weapon? Whoever he was in this new world, he was impressed with himself.

"Well, attack when you can and when I ask you to. We've got this." Curt knew that they didn't; they were outnumbered eight to one, but he could hold them off for a very long time. Maybe long enough to get to... Fox territory, they'd called it. "Oliver! Whatever you've got, use it whenever you can. You're what we call a tail gunner."

They were still flying above the mountain range, which meant that he had plenty of room to dive; speed to gain. He pulled lightly back on the stick, anyhow. He wanted to try and get as much altitude as he could before the enemies were upon him. he didn't have any instruments, but he guessed he was about 4,000 feet above the mountains, which looked about 5,000 feet tall. He didn't dare go any higher—too much more and there wouldn't be enough oxygen for humans. He didn't know about the cat and fox things, but he didn't care to make them pass out, either.

He wagered that it would be enough altitude to work with. At least, that was what he was hoping for. He straightened the stick and leveled out, snapped his fingers, snapped his neck. The Templar dragons were hot on his heels, gaining on him. He thought for a second and pulled the 'throttle' stick all the way back, rolled the dragon over and pulled back, making the beast dive until it came back level. He sped back up, the dragon's wings beating the air furiously. "Get ready on those claws and fire, Charlemagne. I want to see some wreckage!"

The enemy dragons rushed over them, diving after them and trying to get back on their tail. They didn't know how to pull a split S with such precision. Curt grinned. Perhaps he could last longer than he'd thought. He waited for another dragon to pass directly overhead and pulled up on the stick with the throttle still maxed, the dragon pulling up and over itself, emerging from the maneuver upside down. The two beast's bellies almost touching, Charlemagne surprised the other, tearing its claws into soft underbelly flesh with fire and a strong bite to the throat. The other dragon started fighting back.

"_Give me control for a second, general."_

Though he wasn't used to being referred to as a general, Curt let go of the sticks and removed his feet from the rudder scales. Charlemagne sunk claws deep into the other dragon's stomach and suddenly rolled over with some force. The enemy dragon was thrown down violently by centrifugal force. Charlemagne started to dive after it, but Curt grabbed the controls back with a mutter of "Not worth losing altitude. He's finished." Charlemagne complied, even if somewhat hesitantly, as Curt leveled the throttle out. The other dragons had finally turned around, now facing them. "Anything we got long range, use it now!" Curt called. Oliver stood up, his hands glowing blue, waiting for the other formation of dragons to grow nearer. Curt shook his head, seeing the other man's magic. How much _had _he forgotten? He refocused on the situation at hand. The enemies were around 500 yards out when Oliver and Charlemagne opened fire with magic. They started receiving fire from the other dragons shortly enough. Curt cursed; as badly as they were outnumbered, just how _did _he plan on winning? _You clearly don__'t, you dolt, _he thought scornfully and revised his former plan of action. "Charlemagne, tell me when you think we're too close for comfort. I don't know their weapons ranges!"

"_Will do. You're a good flier, sir."_

"I don't have much with which to compare, but I'd be willing to say you are, too."

"_Thank you." -_a burst of blue caught the beast right beside Curt's left leg-_ "Ouch, now would be good."_

Curt floored the throttle, rolled to the right until he was almost upside down and pulled back. Charlemagne overrode his throttle and simply folded his wings. Curt was just fine with that. The Templar dragons were right behind them. One, the only one without a human on its back, pulled ahead of the others. The beast looked familiar. The lead dragon waved all the others off and they scattered, looping in the sky far above them like vultures.

Curt grimaced. He'd seen lead pilots do the same to their trainees when they wanted to finish an opponent or take them for their self. It usually meant that that pilot was an expert. It always worried him when it happened to him. He sighed and maneuvered closer to the forest clinging to the side of the mountains.

"_That's Roland on our tail," _Charlemagne said at the equivalent of a mutter. _"He's the wisest and most skilled of al__l the dragons in Templar control."_

"That's just great," Curt muttered scornfully.

"We're doomed," Katie squeaked.

"Not helping!" Curt and Oliver yelled at the same time.

"C'mon, long range, let's go you two!" Curt shouted, calling attention back to the situation at hand.

"Right," Oliver muttered and turned. Curt returned his attention to the way he was going, though he didn't have to focus as well as he would've needed to in a plane. A dragon could fly its self, even if Curt could fly them in a whole new way. Oliver began firing with the _polybolos._

Curt thought for a second. "You're going to have to trust me here, Charlemagne. This might just work." He pushed the stick down again, the beast's nose moving more vertical, no longer parallel with the mountains. The forest drew nearer and nearer. Curt eyed the forest, looking for... _There! That's what I want. _He rolled to the right and pushed down on the stick harder. Charlemagne shot below the tree canopy. He brought himself even with the slope of the mountain and touched it with his claws, bleeding speed, clearly seeing what Curt what was up to. They worked in unison, dodging trees and protruding rocks, sweat breaking on Curt's brow from the effort and sheer concentration.

Roland passed overhead, not able to slow down fast enough and too large to enter the forest for himself. Charlemagne took control for a second, sending a bolt of energy out though the canopy and following it through the clearing it made in the trees. The bolt struck Roland as it exited. Curt grinned; Roland may have been the most skilled dragon out there, but Charlemagne still knew what he was doing.

"_Sorry about that, the controls are yours again," _Charlemagne muttered. _"I couldn't've told you that fast."_

"Don't worry about it. You know what you're doing."

Charlemagne nodded.

Curt pulled the throttle back down and pushed it back up, more or less reminding Charlemagne that he wanted speed. The dragon complied, putting them behind Roland, gaining. Roland suddenly flipped over them. Curt yanked the stick back with a command. "Bite his tail!"

Charlemagne cackled and did so. _"Controls?"_

Curt let go. Charlemagne wrapped himself around Roland's tail with a bite and fire, claws ripping into flesh. Oliver pounded the side of the larger dragon with magic and crossbow bolts. Roland turned to face them with a snarl and a deep breath in. Charlemagne released the larger dragon, falling away. The larger dragon breathed fire on his enemies.

Curt knew it was over. Fire bathed the skies. It took him a second to realize that it wasn't over, but that Oliver held a shield over them, protecting them. He let out a sigh of relief and floored the throttle again. They dove down the side of the mountain, Roland again on their tail. Curt reflected for a brief moment on how literally the other dragon was on their _tail. _He returned his mind back to where it needed to be; the battle he couldn't even remember why he was in.

"Thank you, Oliver! Now, hit that dragon!"

The only response was the thumping noise of Oliver shooting off more magic. The trailing dragon spat fire, lapping at Charlemagne's tail. Curt pulled the stick to the right and back to the left, swerving around, trying to avoid the larger dragon's wrath. The larger dragon clearly had more power and would catch up to them soon enough. Just like he would've in a dogfight back home, Curt began going over his advantages and disadvantages. The other dragon could outrun them, and that was becoming clear as it gained on them. He could clearly defeat Roland in a test of maneuvering, though. _Time to play on our strong suits, _he thought with a grin.

He cut the throttle slightly and pulled the stick back, leveling out and racing across the sky. Roland shot past their trajectory, not able to pull up fast enough. "Gotcha," Curt snickered, watching the larger beast trying to pull back as fast as they had. Curt rolled his beast over on its belly and pulled up, bringing the nose down. He floored the throttle. Roland leveled out just as they came over him. Charlemagne shot a bolt of magic and then fire. Oliver pelted the other dragon as Charlemagne overrode Curt's controls for a moment, folding his wings up, throwing his claws out and holding his head back. The two beasts collided with a violent and sudden cracking of scales, screeches of pain and claws under armor. Charlemagne locked onto Roland, not about to let go. He bit the larger dragon and breathed fire and potent magic onto it. Oliver just sat there in awe.

Roland attempted to get the other dragon to let go, fighting furiously and trying to bite back, whipping his tail up at them. Finding these efforts futile, the beast dove straight for the ground. Charlemagne wouldn't be so easily shaken. Roland began to roll, trying to throw the smaller dragon off that way. Charlemagne clung to him anyhow, remaining defiant. _"I will get you off of me one way or another, you traitor!" _Roland barked.

"_Quiet now, let the poison take," _Charlemagne returned at a whisper and made another bite.

Curt had to wonder if his dragon was bluffing. Well, he hoped not, anyhow. Roland didn't respond, instead moving closer to the mountains. He rolled over, his back (and Charlemagne) facing the trees as he moved closer. What was Roland doing?

Curt realized just what the beast was up to as a tree slammed into Charlemagne's face. "Let go!"

"_I can't. I'll just slam us into the forest floor. The bottom of the mountains is close. I'll be able to get free there. I'll be alright until then."_

"Try to roll us over with your wings."

"_Not happening."_

"Then stay strong."

"_Until de__ath, my comrade."_

The beast sounded like he meant it.

Roland jerked back from the mountains and rolled violently around. Charlemagne's grip failed him. They were thrown off, headed straight for the valley forest, not a hundred yards below them. Curt grabbed the controls and rolled them over, pulling back and reminding the dragon that the throttle was at max. Charlemagne started pumping his wings, trying to escape the force. Curt laughed excitedly when he realized that it was working; that the beast was finally working. He let out a whoop of joy.

Suddenly, Curt saw Roland out of the corner of his left eye. The larger and older dragon flung a bolt of strong deep blue at them. It blasted into Charlemagne's side, nearly severing his wing.

Charlemagne's last words were simple, _"He'll be dead soon, anyhow."_

Curt's controls were dead in his hands. "Jump!" he shouted and bailed himself.

* * *

Michaela fell through the air ten feet, slamming into the ground and rolling. She groaned and made a mental check. She didn't think she'd broken any bones and, with that in mind, started to stand. Her legs were wobbly and her paws killed her, but she was fine. There was a sudden crash behind her. She instinctively dove to the ground. Charlemagne's body hit trees, knocking them over and bursting some into but splinters. It was safely away from the four of them.

She again stood up and looked at the bodies around her. Lambert slowly sat up, holding a hand to his head and nodding as he met her glance. Katie licked her ruffled fur down, uninjured. Curt was sprawled across the ground, breathing shallowly and bleeding out of injuries she'd only partially healed that had re-opened on impact. She sprung over to him, kneeling beside him and using her last two crystals to heal what she could. Lambert sprung over and started healing himself.

He dismissed her with a wave, "Go take a rest. I know it's been a heck of a day for you and we'll have to move fast as soon as he's stable."

She nodded, "Thank you, sir."

"Don't call me that," he muttered and returned his attention to healing Curt.

She sighed and collapsed on a tree beside Katie. "Hopefully he'll have his memory back, at least."

"Hopefully," Katie muttered. Michaela wished she'd've been more optimistic with the reply, but supposed that it would do.

Lambert finished stabilizing Curt and woke him up with a glowing hand to the forehead. Curt shot up off the ground and took a deep breath in. "That hurt," he muttered.

"You alright?" Lambert asked, standing up and offering Curt a hand to do the same. Curt took it, standing up slowly.

"Yeah. Head hurts, still shaking from the adrenaline rush. Can't remember the past twenty-something years of my life... Otherwise, I'm good."

Michaela let out a small groan at the next to last statement, but was cut short by Lambert's curt order that they needed to get moving before the other dragons and riders were on them.

They obeyed, grabbing bags and getting on the move. They walked a half mile and stopped to rest as Lambert healed Curt. They got back on the move when he finished They'd completed the process about ten times before the day began to fade.

Michaela sighed and sat on the ground. It'd been a long day. Her paws hurt from walking (and jumping too much), her hands hurt from using too much magic at one time and her stomach hurt for want of food. She knew that it wasn't smart or good for her to go without food being pregnant, but there wasn't much they could do about it, either. They could only hope that the Templar would call the search off for at least the night. If not, well, they were just in for a fight. They couldn't keep running all night with someone injured as badly as Curt was.

She just shook her head and took deep calming breaths. Katie walked over and practically collapsed, just like Michaela had. It'd been a long day for the lot of them. Lambert and Curt sat across from them. There would be no fire that night; dragons could spot it from the sky.

"What do you mean, you don't think they'll follow us?" Curt asked Lambert.

"You made sure that they'd devoted too many troops to the battle to send a proper search party. The dragons are going to have to go back and continue to support the ground dragons and infantry or they'll be outflanked and likely defeated."

Curt scratched his head and scowled. "I wish I was that smart."

"Sir, you came up with that plan."

"Right. And, don't call me sir," Curt muttered and stared off into the distance. He finally shook his head slightly and stood up.

"Where you goin'?" Michaela asked, concerned.

"For a walk."

"After all the walking we did today?"

"Helps me think," he said, clearly viewing the matter settled.

Michaela thought for a second as he walked off. "Can I come with you?" she asked before he was too far.

He hesitated. "Yeah. Why not?"

_Why not indeed, Curt, _she thought and got up, hurrying to catch up with him. He still walked fast, if not faster, than when he'd first met her. _As fast as he had long before he first met me, _she thought in realization. They walked out into the forest towards a small stream she could barely hear. She doubted Curt even knew it was there.

She reached to take his hand.

He recoiled and paused, shaking his head, "Who were you to me?"

She was the one to hesitate that time. "Your girlfriend. I suppose that'd be the best way to put it."

"What about Sarah?" he shouted. "I'm married! Why do I have a girlfriend?"

She knew better than to put it at him bluntly. "We'd better take it one step at a time, honey."

"Don't call me that," he snapped.

"Very well," she mumbled as they came up on the stream. If Curt hadn't known it was there, she couldn't tell.

He sat down on its bank, holding his legs upright and resting his head on them. The fetal position, he'd called it before. He'd said that people would sit in it when they were scared or wanted to feel protected. She so badly yearned to hug him, lean on him, comfort him, but she knew better. He wouldn't like it much in the state he was in. Instead, she sat cross legged beside him.

"Sarah and I would always do this," he muttered. "Go down to the little creek out behind the house, listen to the water run by, talk, think, let our problems melt away—if only for a moment." He paused and took in a deep breath. She could tell that he barely held back tears. "Now I don't even know what I'm thinking about! Who I am! Where I am!" He yelled. His voice softened, trembled. "Who am I? Where am I? Who have I become? What have I forgotten?"

She sat in silence, partially out of awe. "I can help you a bit with where you are."

He motioned for her to go on.

"Do you remember using a..." -she searched for the word- "portal?"

"Yeah. Long time ago"

"You went back through it, then, I guess. Something went wrong and it threw you here. You think this is another world... planet, you called it, or an... alternate reality." She had to dig a bit to find those terms, but she finally did.

He nodded thoughtfully. "That makes sense. A whole lot of it, actually." He paused in thought. "Why are we running? To get you home, I know, but why? Home from where?"

"We're running because we... peeved the Templar a bit. You're trying to get me home from the Human Empire, where I was a slave."

He looked stunned. "A... slave..?"

She nodded. "You freed me."

"I... I... _I _did."

"Yeah. You promised me I'd never be a slave again, that you'd get me home, one way or another."

He let out a small laugh with a sigh. "I'm much more romantic than I recall."

She gave him a questioning look.

"Sarah and I... Well, we weren't on the best terms when I left for this deployment."

She looked at him in pity. "What happened?"

"She wanted me to leave the Air Force, take care of the kids. They're both practically babies, so it makes sense, I suppose. She says she wants them to have a father, doesn't want me to die on them... On her."

Michaela nodded. She could see where Sarah was coming from; she hadn't been too happy about Curt going into just _one _battle, much less many for many months. She also sympathized with Curt. She put the latter into words, "I couldn't imagine being so far away from someone I loved, especially if I thought they were mad at me."

"You ain't got no idea," he muttered with a shake of his head. "She said she'd move out and take the kids with her if I went out. I don't know if they'll even be there when I get back." A silent tear slid down his face. "I don't know what I'll do if I don't ever see them again."

It seemed he'd forgotten where he was... again. She knew he didn't know they were all dead. She wasn't about to bring that up. "Why'd you deploy, then?" She asked, slyly shifting the subject ever so slightly. Half of her wanted to remind him that it was all over anyhow, tell him that he'd been married for almost 25 years before... But she didn't. Curt had always sealed her out from his past. Now she finally had an open window into it and she wanted to keep gazing through it for as long as she could.

"I had to. It might've been declared an act of treason for me to leave the service as soon as a war breaks out. Even if it wouldn't've been, I would've gone. I can't leave my country like that. We needed skilled pilots with experience in Korea and there weren't many of those to go around."

"Well, if you had to, why was she so mad?"

"She insisted that, if I filed retirement for family reasons, they'd let me go without another word. She knew it was a fairy tale just as well as I did, but it didn't stop her from _insisting _that I did it."

"Oh. Did you fight?"

"No," he said with some pride and a meek smile. "May've raised our voices a bit too high, but we never, _never _fought."

She nodded.

He took in a deep breath paused, no doubt listening to the quiet babbling of the stream. "That was one thing about the creek. We made an agreement to never argue there. It was just that kind of place..."

"A place to get away?"

"Yeah," he said. "Always has been for me. Even when I was just a little boy, it didn't matter what it was, I could go down to the creek, usually with the dog right behind me, and think it out... Or just not think about it."

She took in a deep breath of her own. "Yeah, they're good places for that."

He looked a her, "Enough about me. I hate talking about myself. What's your story? I'm sure you've told me before, but you'll have to bear with me."

"You know, I don't think I ever told you the whole story. I was born in a small Fox village to an even smaller family. I had two brothers, Seth and Thomas, and two sisters, Beth and Amber. We all got along pretty good, I guess. When my father (I don't even remember his name) got older, he started taking Seth with him when he went to the market in the larger cities. They sold the trinkets and small things he made and he took bids to do larger jobs—he was a carpenter. I was about three when, while they were off at the market, a group of Wolves hired by the Templar came in and took the rest of us off, sold us into slavery. I bounced around from master to master, none of them any good to me, for about a year. Finally, I came to a family that was pretty good to me, just used me to clean up around the house, babysit the kids, that kind of thing. I stayed with them until I was about eight," she sighed and took a few breaths. "Then they ran into hard times and had to sell me. They sold me to a slave trader. He was going to sell me, but decided that he could use me as a personal slave. He did, too. Everything from his personal waitress to..." she shivered, "a breeder."

He shook his head and let out a breath. "That's... That's horrible... I'll never for the life of me understand how people could do that, treat another being like such dirt."

"Neither will I. Neither will I." Not wanting to talk about the past she still feared, she changed subjects. "While we're talking about what we never did before, how did you and Sarah meet?"

He chuckled. "Happenstance, really. I met her in Germany, on Air Force business. She was there for her work I was taking a train to Amsterdam and she was in the seat beside me. We actually started talking in German and quickly found out we were both American," he said with another chuckle. "While I was in Amsterdam, we'd meet up, go to coffee shops and such. That's when we found out we were both from North Carolina." He let out another, heartier, chuckle. "You know, we had some kind of a time dating, what the way the Air Force ran me around and her job did the same to her. Somehow or another, we managed to keep seeing each other."

"Wow... That's a story..."

He laughed. "Yeah. You shoulda seen me try to explain it to my folks."

She grinned, "Yeah, I would like to've seen it. But I suppose I would've turned a few heads and inspired a lot of second glances back on your world."

"Just a few. Not that that's a bad thing."

"How is it not? I'm nothing close to normal."

He shook his head. "There ain't no such thing as normal. Besides, aren't there plenty more of your kind?"

"Yeah, but that don't help. I still feel like such an outcast. Spendin' most my life with Humans, it's made me think that anything less isn't normal, isn't right, that I'm inferior," she muttered.

"You're every bit as much a person as I!" he exclaimed. "I guess they brainwashed you pretty well."

She looked to her feet. "Yeah, I guess they have." She found it incredible that, even though this Curt hadn't known her for very long, he still thought of her as a person as much as the Curt in love with her had.

"Now, I have to ask," he said in a musing voice, "what are Katie and Oliver doing?"

"The general was getting her home, too. He doesn't believe in slavery, not any more. He realizes that it ain't right."

Curt nodded. "I had to ask because I only found _three _tents in our stuff. Do... they sleep in the same tent?"

Michaela cringed. "No, honey, _we _sleep in the same tent."

Curt's jaw dropped, followed by a stream of curses in German.

* * *

Katie looked at Oliver with a sigh. "Wonder what they're talking about," she muttered.

"No telling. I figured you'd be able to hear better than I could."

"Not much. I can tell when my name comes up—it has several times—but that's about it."

Oliver nodded and shrugged. "Probably about this world, who he is... Who she is to him... Makes me feel sorry for him. I couldn't imagine forgetting so much of my life."

Katie shrugged. "He'll live. He should remember it all before long, anyhow, right?"

Oliver shrugged. "Yeah, if I recall, he'll have an event they call 'spontaneous recovery.' No way to tell when that will be, though. Could be hours, days, weeks, months, even years."

Katie gasped a little. "Could it really last that long?"

"It's possible, just not very likely. I'm betting that it'll be sometime in the next couple of days."

She nodded and sighed. "But how will we get back to my home _now? _With the dragon gone and all, I mean?"

"Hope you don't get seasick easy, that's all I got to say."

She groaned, "Slightly."

"I think I've got magic that'll help that," he muttered.

Katie nodded and yawned widely. "Can I go to bed?"

"Yeah, let me set up your tent for you."

She nodded, deciding to let him do it alone. She'd had to play the roll of his slave for long enough that it was time for him to return the favor. He set the tent up, taking some time. She gratefully crawled inside with a small "Thanks, goodnight."

She was asleep within minutes.

* * *

Oliver sighed and started to set up the other two tents as Katie dozed off in hers. It took him some time to do the task, the tents nothing short of monstrous with their sheer number of knots and wooden poles. He finally did finish setting up both tents, being rather speedy by the time he finished setting up the third one.

Curt and Michaela wandered up just as he finished hammering the last stake into the ground. _He always did have an odd sort of __impeccable timing, _Oliver thought with a roll of his eyes. "You would come up right as I finish, wouldn't you?"

"Always," he said with a mischievous grin. "Should've hollered. I would've been more than willing to help."

"It's alright. I'm sure you two had _plenty _to talk about."

Curt grimaced. "You could say that..."

Michaela tugged on his arm like an impatient child. "I want to go to bed," she whined.

"Then_ go," _he said forcefully. Oliver guessed that he was trying to convince her that he'd have no part of their old relationship.

She recoiled a bit. "Not until you do," she said defiantly.

"Then you'll be up for a while," he muttered. "I'll take the first watch, Oliver."

"No, you need to get some rest. I'll wake you about midnight."

"I _want _the first watch, Oliver."

"No, you go on. I'll never be able to sleep," the younger man said quietly with a dismissive wave.

"C'mon, Curt, just go to bed," Michaela said

He ignored her and kept his attention on Oliver. "As late as it is? You'll be able to sleep just fine."

"He wants to have the watch," Michaela said. "C'mon."

"Sir, just go to sleep so she'll quit whining."

He sighed. "Yeah, that's a good idea, but I'm not sleeping in the same tent as her, not as small as these are. I ain't about to let a lady sleep outside if I got a tent, either."

"You _will _sleep in this tent," she demanded.

Curt grinned, "Make me." He leaned into the tent and grabbed two blankets. He laid them out on the ground, taking off his boots and removing what was left of his torn and tattered robe, revealing a pair of pants in a pattern Oliver had never seen before. He chose to ignore it. Curt laid down on the small palliate and covered himself.

Michaela huffed and bent over, grabbing him and trying to pick him up. She made no progress. She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him along the ground. Her feet dug into the ground before he so much as moved an inch.

"Is it established that you're not getting me into that tent?" he asked in a most matter-of-fact matter.

She sighed, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright, you win," and went into her tent.

He grinned and turned about a bit under the single sheet. Oliver chuckled. The man knew how to win an argument, he'd give him that.

He also seemed to be able to sleep, no matter what, staying perfectly still until Oliver woke him for his turn at watch. Oliver turned in immediately thereafter and fell asleep within minutes. He'd had a long couple of days.

He was awoken to an odd sound that he eventually recognized as a lute of some form. It sounded odd, somehow off the key he was used to a lute being in. He emerged from the tent to find the day in the barely predawn hours and Curt sitting on one of the logs they had arranged in a triangle outside the tents, lute on his knee.

At least, Oliver thought it was a lute. It was completely out of proportion in every respect. It was about a foot thick, much larger and its neck was far too long. It was shaped oddly, too, like a gourd instead of a teardrop. The headstock wasn't bent back towards him, either, but instead straight with the rest of the neck. What the heck kind of lute _was _that?

Whatever kind it was, Curt seemed to be able to play it very well. He could sing, too. _"Sometimes when we're young, and always on the run, it gets so dark and I know that place yeah-ee-yeah! So don't__ be too concerned, you got a lot to learn. Well so do I and we've got plenty of time yeah-ee-yeah! Don't fall off the track yet with so many races to go. Hold on. This ride __that takes me through life, leads me into darkness but emerges into light, no one c__an ever slow me down, I'll stay unbound!"_

Oliver tried to follow the lyrics and their meaning—they seemed to be very deep—but he was captivated by the strange instrument, the way Curt's fingers glided across its neck. _"I never lived in fear, I knew I'd die__ another day, I never viewed my life as something... slipping away"_

Oliver understood why Curt was playing the song at that instant. He felt like his life was suddenly slipping away. He'd never pondered the changes that something like amnesia could bring to a person, how it could change one's perspective. Interesting thought, really, especially seeing how philosophical Oliver could be at times.

Curt finished the song with a slow, gradual fading of his instrument and replacing it with slow, melodic singing. Katie, who Oliver hadn't even noticed up until that point, clapped, "Another! Another!"

"Fine," Curt muttered and thought for a second. He reached to the end of the neck, changed the tuning a bit and started playing again, a much lighter song that sounded happier somehow. _"I'm here for you, she said, and we can stay for a while, my boyfriend's gone and we can just pretend..."_

An interesting song considering the man's current situation.

"_Was this over before, before it ever began?"_

Most interesting. About halfway through the song, though, it seemed as if Michaela heard something. Her ear jerked around, the rest of her following shortly, her elbow smacking Curt square in the side of the head. Oliver laughed at first, but realized that it seemed to have hurt Curt severely. He gripped his head, his face wrought into an expression of pure agony.

Michaela turned around, hands over her mouth in shock. "I'm sorry, Curt! You alright?"

"Yeah, ow, okay, there it is..." he muttered, trailing off.

"There what is?" the three of them asked him at the same time.

"Everything for the past... how many years, now?"

* * *

Curt felt time pause and cursed. "What do you want, Neutral?" he growled.

"You've not held up your end of the bargain," it said in a most threatening tone.

"You don't get it, do you?" He chuckled. "The Wolves couldn't've possibly won this war. It just wasn't possible. You knew that, that's why you allowed that couple, Trace and Flora, to have a child," he thanked Lambert for telling him about that one. "Same reason you let us."

"Yes, I know that, but _you _could've helped it end better than this! The Templar will trample the Wolves thanks to the things you've given them!"

"All I did was speed up the inevitable. You brought it on yourself. You wanted results." He leaned closer with an evil grin and whispered, "You got 'em."

"You know I've got to kill your little girlfriend now."

"Why?"

"I told you I would."

"What purpose would it serve? If you kill her, I'll kill myself and you _know _I'm not lying, she's all I've got to live for. You'll be _all _out of options then. You at least know that there'll be some Keidran blood left now."

"You don't get it, mortal!"

"I may not, but you tell me I'm wrong."

Time resumed its course, a grin of relief and victory on Curt's face.

* * *

Curt paced impatiently outside the small Fox village's hut of a hospital. Lambert and Katie sat on benches along its outside wall. For the third time in his life, Curt could not sit still from the worry, the anticipation. He didn't even have the pleasure of knowing if it was a girl of a boy this time.

"Sit down, calm down, Curt!" Lambert called.

Curt stopped amid step. "You've clearly never had children, Lambert."

"Nossir, why?"

"Because, if you would've, you would've known that you _can't _sit down _or_ calm down."

"Ah."

"Yeah, that," he muttered and resumed his pacing. He'd been told that the hut was soundproofed with magic and kept sterile in the same manner. It seemed that magic could do wonders for medicine. The fact that the medieval people even knew what sterile _meant _was a testament to that. Either way, thanks to the soundproofing, he couldn't tell when Michaela was in pain, how she was, anything. He just sighed and kept pacing.

A Fox in stark white robes covering most of its fur poked its head out of the door. "General Lane? She... and they... made it out safely. You're in for a slight surprise, though..."

Curt raised an eyebrow. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

The Fox laughed. "You've got two beautiful girls here, sir."

_Two? _He shook his head. _Just lik__e home. _He chuckled to himself._ No, this is home now. I'm not an outsider anymore, am I? I am _home_._

* * *

Wanted to credit the two songs I used.

"Unbound (The Wild Ride)" – Avenged Sevenfold

"The Feel Good Drag" – Anberlin

Hope you enjoyed! Please do read the epilogue once I publish it; I've attached my final author's notes after it.


	8. Epilogue

Here's the Epilogue, hope you all enjoy. Sorry it took so long, I was out of town for the week.

Also, something is up with the uploader and italics today, so that might cause some errors. I think I've fixed them all, but if you find any, please do ignore them.

Don't feel down because it's over, either. I've got another surprise coming soon.

* * *

The alarm clock clanged. Curt groaned and cut it off promptly. Michaela, who slept deeper than ever, wasn't even phased by the loud bells. Curt was. He got up slowly and sat his feet on the cold wooden floor. He shook fog off his head. Now he _was_old. How old, now? 59, nearly 60. Michaela was 20, he knew that.

He slipped on sandals and took one last glance at his wife before he got started on the day. Just like his had been for some time, her hair was starting to grey and her joints starting to creak and crone. He smiled-not that it was a pleasant notion, but because it was the point of marriage, wasn't it? To grow old together? The two of them were fulfilling that every day. Granted, they'd tampered with it a bit, but they still fulfilled it.

Together, Lambert and Curt had come up with a 'cure' for Keidran aging using magic. Lambert had said and stood by the fact that magic could not make one live forever. However, in combination with some cellular science Curt had learned, they had managed to slow Keidran aging down to the pace of a human. While that didn't mean that most of them accepted it, it meant that he still had much longer with his still beautiful wife than he'd ever thought he'd have.

He finished putting his robes on and walked down the hallway to Judith's room. He opened the door gently, "C'mon, honey, time to get up."

Judith, who slept as lightly as her father, opened her eyes and nodded. "'Morning, daddy."

He smiled, "Good morning. Don't forget, you've got to make a presentation today, so wear your nice blue dress."

She smiled, glad to have the chance to dress up. She was almost seven and had her mother's ears, tail and good looks, her father's bare skin and blue eyes. For the most part, she'd gotten Curt's tall frame, too, standing at a good 5'8'. He shook his head as he closed the door and walked to Esther's bedroom. Her boyfriend was one lucky kid to have his daughter. He grinned. Then again, Curt was the Fox Army's number one weapons producer. That made an intimidating family for any boy. At least he approved of the kid, even if he was cautious.

He opened Esther's door. "C'mon, honey, time to get up."

Esther rolled around and groaned a bit.

Curt rolled his eyes. Esther had gotten her mother's deep sleep. He walked in and gently nudged her. She shifted some. He finally set a hand on her shoulder and shook her lightly. "C'mon, time to get up."

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, father," she muttered sleepily.

He grinned and shook his head, rubbing her head lightly. "You have a presentation today, remember? Be sure to dress nicely."

She groaned as she started to get up. Esther always had been a bit of a tomboy. She hated dressing nicely. He just shook his head and went down to Joseph's room, closing the door behind him.

He opened the door and peeked in. "C'mon, son, time to get up."

Joe had Curt and Judith's light sleep. "Alright, daddy."

"Don't forget, you've got P.E. today, so don't dress too nice."

"I won't," the boy said and started to get up. He was about five, though he seemed to be aging faster than his sisters. With a Human/Kiedran mix, though, there was no way to tell. There wasn't exactly a 'normal' aging pattern.

Curt closed the door and walked back down to where he'd started.

He skipped formalities and shook Michaela awake. "Time to get up, honey."

"Five more minutes," she mumbled.

"You say that every morning, you know."

"I know," she said with a sheepish grin.

"Have I given you five minutes yet?"

"No."

"Then get up," he said with a mimic of her grin.

She shook her head as she sat up. "You've got a way with words, honey."

"I know," he said and kissed her. "Good morning, darlin'."

"Who says it's good?"

"You're alive. That's enough for me."

* * *

Michaela scrambled eggs as Curt poured his coffee. She doled out some of the eggs onto each of the five plates on the table. A sausage patty and bacon already rested on each plate. Joe sat behind his plate, impatiently waiting to eat. Esther, dressed as plain as she could be without her father getting on to her, waited patiently. Judith was still upstairs, no doubt 'getting pretty' for her boyfriend. Michaela rolled her eyes. "Get your tail down here, Judith! Thomas won't see you at all if you don't hurry up!" she yelled up the stairs. _That __should__ do __it__, _she thought.

Sure as the world, she came bolting down the stairs mere minutes later. Michaela poured their milk from a glass jar in the icebox. Curt grinned as she sat down beside him. "Never did find many women who could make as good a breakfast as you," he said, rubbing and scratching her back. It arched of itself and her tail was sent to wagging.

"Dad, gross, stop that," the kids chorused.

Curt rolled his eyes. "I forget that scratching a Kiedran's back is a display of affection. You'll live kids," he said and directed a pointed glare at Judith. "Especially you, miss. Don't you dare tell me Thomas hasn't scratched your back at least once."

"He has not!"

He leaned over the table and made his glare more pointed.

"Okay, maybe once... Or twice..."

Curt sat back and grinned. "That's what I thought."

Michaela reflected for a brief second that Curt was _still_ adjusting to his new world. Some small part of her doubted he'd ever truly get used to it. That didn't matter though, never had, never would. He did the best he could with what he had.

His best was pretty darned good. The house around them was built had been built with his two hands and the money he made from the things he 'invented.' Nothing he invented was really new to him. They were simple artifacts from his past that shouldn't have existed for another thousand years, things like the printing press, the sawmill, the cotton gin, the sewing machine and many, many other things. No matter how simple they seemed to him, they made them more than enough money to keep the family up.

She still didn't like his main business, though. He invented and produced weapons for the Fox, Bastian, Cat and Tiger armies in the largest business in Fox territory. He said that it was his way of attoning for what he'd done, giving the Templar the tools to take the Wolf territory and in turn betray the Fox. He took great pains to ensure that all his weapons stayed in the right hands, that they were used for good. It still didn't mean Michaela liked it. The children finished hastily and were equally hastily off to school. Curt had always said that he thought their desire to go to school was just unnatural. Michaela always ignored him when he said it.

Not it was Curt's turn to be off. He sighed and stood up slowly. He kissed her on the forehead with another rub of her back. "Bye, honey. Love you."

"Love you too, dear," she said as he walked out the door.

She sighed and started cleaning the table. At supper, he always made sure to help her with the table and the dishes. In the morning, there simply wasn't time... That is, there wasn't time unless they, and in turn, she, got up earlier. It was a trade she was more than willing to make.

* * *

Curt walked out the door and around behind the large house he lived in. He could still pleasantly remember building it. Behind it was a stable. The children had already saddled their horses and rode out of the barn as he went in a side door. Inside, a small dragon patiently waited. The dragon was far too proud to live in a stable, but instead rested there for the night and did whatever it wanted in the day (Curt thought that it really lived there but was too proud to admit it). It also carried Curt to his work.

Lane Industries was kept deep in the heart of Fox territory, well away from all borders and well sheltered from areal attacks. Templar dragons sometimes made bombing runs with large stones and crude explosives, but they grew more and more rare as the UK (United Keidran) and Bastian forces drove the Templar back and took control of the sea and sky. He and his dragon landed and he begun his usual inspection of production.

First, he surveyed fifteen battleships being built for the UKN (United Keidran Navy) and Bastian Navy. They were more like advanced ironclads than battleships, but they were still far more formidable than anything the Templar had managed to churn out. They had 9" guns situated in pairs of three on three turrets along the top of the ship. They fired Manna Crystal Tipped (MCT) rounds that were very potent, even when compared to the self-discarding sabot rounds Curt was used to.

Next he inspected some of the hundreds of pieces of Ground Dragon armor and turrets being produced for the UKA (United Keidran Army) and Bastian special forces. The Kiedran models didn't have weapons, but instead fired magic blasts by the crew. The Bastians, being incapable of magic, had theirs loaded with 100mm MCT firing guns and 15mm MCT machine guns. The armor was a composite of several metals and lightweight ceramics, enabling UKA and Bastian Ground Dragons to be much lighter, faster and yet still better armored than their Templar counterparts. He walked around the factory and came to the personal weapons. UKA manna rifles with massive bayonets running the length of the weapons were churned out on production lines. He picked one of the finished products up. They were actually light enough that they could be used as swords when the enemy was close enough, and worked by channeling the user's manna and magic blasts into very refined and precision blasts.

Mortars and all forms of artillery followed. Personal armor, made of ceramics and very primitive synthetic fibers woven in with natural fibers were next in line. Only a few of those were in production; test units to be approved by the two armies. The units still looked good and polished. Digital camouflage (called Lane Cammo by... pretty much everyone but him) uniforms were made in the next few rooms, which looked more like a textile plant than a military factory. They helped the Keidran, who didn't wear armor anyhow, blend in better with their surroundings while still providing some light armor.

Personal weapons for the Bastian followed. Because they couldn't use magic, Curt produced assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols for them. Also in the room were fine hand-crafted swords, though they didn't sell nearly as well, as much competition as Lane Industries had in that department. Armor-piercing MCT-RGP launchers were also present. He'd gotten several thank-yous from Bastian units for that invention; stories of small squads hunted down by Templar Ground Dragon units and saved by their MCT-RPGs.

Curt finished his inspections and sat down in his office with a sigh. It wasn't the paperwork, though he hated that, too, it was his past creeping up on him. He'd redefined warfare on this world, made it more deadly, cost more lives. He sighed and shook his head. He didn't want that. He didn't want a world where war reigned. He was trying desperately to make enough weapons to overpower the Templar, make this war end and make them think twice about ever starting another. He doubted it would work, but it was worth a shot. What had he to lose? If he did nothing, he was grunted to lose everything. If it worked, he had a lot to gain. If it didn't work, well, he didn't like to think about it.

DIVIDER

Judith Lane hitched her horse and walked towards her schoolhouse with a sigh. She, along with most everyone else present (and all of those not present), hated school. Worse yet, her father had started the idea of free, mandatory, public education. It meant that not only did she have to deal with being one of three like her, but also that she had to explain why the Fox had public schools. The explanation actually made sense (the Fox could only overcome the Humans if every one of them was educated), but it still didn't mean that she liked it. As usual, she was early and Thomas sat on the steps waiting for her.

"Good morning," he called.

She smiled warmly, "Good mornin'."

He grinned. "You still got some of that, what'd you call it, Southern Drawl."

She shrugged, "I'm trying to get rid of it."

He shook his head as she sat down beside him, "No, I like it."

She grinned, "Really?"

He nodded.

She shook her head, "I still just can't believe that you like _me__... _I'm not normal. I'm... I'm so different from everyone else. I feel like such a..." she searched for the word.

"Outsider?"

"Yeah, that's it exactly. An outsider. That's what I am."

* * *

Michaela Lane sat quietly beside her husband, her head resting on his shoulder and reading with him. The book was written by a man they'd both known in the past; the same man that had secured their escape from the grip of the Templar. The story was a nearly fantastical one, about a man flung from a dying world into the one they knew. It told of his unlikely romance with an escaping slave of a species he'd never met, their escape through a war zone, and their return to her home. The book glorified the whole ordeal, she thought, but she still liked it. _Who __would__'__ve __thought __I__'__d__ end __up __in__ a __book__?_

She looked around her a bit, somehow finishing the page before Curt (he'd taught her to read in the years after they returned). They had so many things, so much to be thankful for. Curt's business made a lot of money, but they still tried to live simple lives, after all the years. They both knew and understood how quickly it could all end.

She went back to reading, trying to catch up with Curt, who'd turned the page while she was distracted. Two of the kids interrupted them, chasing after each other, one tripping over Curt's outstretched and crossed legs. He looked over the edge of the book for a second as she landed. "I keep tellin' y'all not to run in the house," he muttered as Esther got up and started chasing her little brother again.

"Keidran aren't like humans, I keep trying to tell you, honey, they _will _run in the house, no matter what you tell them," Michaela said.

"They ain't Keidran," he said.

"They ain't Human, either," she responded. They'd had the conversation a hundred times. They'd have it a hundred times again before all the children were gone and they both knew it.

He chuckled. "We _are_an old married couple now."

She elbowed him softly with a roll of the eyes. "Grow up fast don't they?"

He did all he could not to break out laughing, and she could tell. "You think so, do you?"

"What?"

"I thought my first two grew up fast. Ours are growing at, what, quadruple the rate?"

Amazingly enough, she'd never thought about that. "Yeah, must be kind of shocking for you, huh?"

He chuckled, "A little. I mean, at age six, Judith and Esther are almost ready to ready to move out... My other Judith and Esther were more than ten years from moving out when they were six."

She sighed. The children would never fit in anywhere. They'd all been unsure what they might do in the future. She remembered Curt saying, 'They're the real outsiders. They always will be.' She sighed. She and Curt knew what being an outsider was like. "Yeah... C'mon, let's keep re-"

She was cut off by a knock at the door. "Odd time," Curt muttered with a glance at his wrist. He marked their page and stood up. Esther and Judith already waited by the door, trying to see who it was. Their younger son walked into the room, no doubt doing the same, as she got up and stood beside Curt. He shooed the older two away from the door as he opened it.

She looked at the couple that stood on their porch. Michaela recognized the female Fox as Lia. The male Tiger that held Lia's hand and the smaller Tiger halfway hiding behind them, well, they were another story.

The older Tiger smiled widely. "What, you don't recognize me?"

"Can't say I do," Curt responded flatly. She noticed that he was reaching for a relic from his past, his old pistol, which he still kept in a table drawer beside the door.

"It's Aaron," the younger couple responded simultaneously, still grinning.

Curt withdrew his hand and stuck it out to shake the kid's. Michaela hugged Lia lightly. The kids introduced themselves.

"Come in, come in," Curt said, waving them on. "We've plenty of room and plenty of time."

_Das __Ende__. __Für __den __moment__._

* * *

I wanted to take a moment for my final author's note.

First off, Curt is based off my great-great grandfather, Curtis Joseph Lane (Everyone called him Curt, too). He was a Marine Drill Sargent during the Second World War.

Michaela is based off a girl by the same name I met at a Baptist Youth summer camp. I'll allow you to draw your own conclusions.

General Oliver Lambert is based off an old friend from where I used to live. The kid's a nut, but he's talented at everything he does, so Lambert's the same way.

Katie is based of no one in particular, though her fur pattern is the same as one of my cats.

Aaron and Lia are, of course, | White Raven |'s characters.

General Simnel is your archetype jerk, based of no one in particular.

"Master" is based off my uncle. He was a good man, but also diagnosed bipolar and a heavy drinker. He was killed in self defense by his own son.

The tailor Curt and Michaela buy their robes from is based off my college anthropology teacher. He is short and bald. He also talks very funny.

Dizon, Curt's wingman in Korea, is based off a good friend of mine at school. He is Asian. And awesome.

All other characters are, more or less, filler.

Also, you may have noticed that some technology isn't completely accurate or possible, like the holographic guitar and the F-35A/2. Both are attempts at compensating for a technological gap of 30 to 50-something years. Avid aviation fans will probably note that the F-35 doesn't have thrust vectoring and that Curt's compliment is more than a JSF is capable of carrying. The idea for both is that, with F-22 Raptors in such short supply, a newer version of the F-35 would have to be a more capable air-to-air fighter.

This story started as a short side project of mine that I expected to be 40 pages, tops. It turned into something so much more as I developed- and became attached to- the characters. I truly loved writing this piece, as it's not only the first time I've given romance a try, but the first time I've tried to write in third person. I honestly found that I like writing romance (and that it is _much_easier to write than action) and I love the freedom third person gives me. I'd never switched perspectives before (much less to a 14-year-old non-human of the opposite sex).

Finally, I want to give | White Raven | a lot of credit- if it weren't for him, this work wouldn't be here. When I started reading TwoKinds, I fell in love. Being the off-time novelist that I am, I instantly wanted to write a story about it, though I knew that I'd have to tread carefully, as lawsuit happy as America is these days. When I expressed this to Raven, he said, "why don't you write a fanfic?" Obviously, I did. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.


	9. Alternative Ending

Here's the little surprise I was speaking of in my Epilogue's author's notes. It's an alternative ending that starts out towards the tail end of Chapter Seven. You may like it more than the original ending. You may hate it and then hate me and tell me I ruined the plot line.

Sorry it took me so long, I got sick right as I was wrapping it up and it slowed me down a lot. Anyhow, I hope you like it.

* * *

About halfway through the song, though, it seemed as if Michaela heard something. Her ear jerked around, the rest of her following shortly, her elbow smacking Curt square in the side of the head. Oliver laughed at first, but realized that it seemed to have hurt Curt severely. He gripped his head, his face wrought into an expression of pure agony.

Michaela turned around, hands over her mouth in shock. "I'm sorry, Curt! You alright?"

"Yeah, ow, okay, there it is..." he muttered, trailing off.

"There what is?" the three of them asked him at the same time.

"Everything for the past... how many years, now?"

"Twent... I heard something else," she said, searching the woods with her ears and eyes.

"I heard it, too," Katie said.

Oliver hadn't heard anything. Curt probably hadn't, either. Nonetheless, Curt shrugged and dug through his pack, pulling out several items Oliver didn't recognize. The first was an odd type of belt with many, many utility pockets. He pulled some kind of small black thing out of his old robes and sheathed it on the belt. The next item was a long black thing, kind of like the smaller one, which he held in his hands, the wider end towards his shoulder, the thinner, circular end away from him. He pressed a button and a small knife folded out of the end. He sheathed his sword from his old belt and took a thick, long-sleeved shirt of the same pattern as his pants from his pack and put it on. Above it he fitted a thick vest of the same pattern. "Better safe than sorry," he said. "You comin', Lambert?"

"Liked it better when you called me 'Oliver,' but yessir."

He grinned and fitted things into his ears, sliding a strange pair of glasses over his face. "Got it, Lambert."

Oliver shook his head, rolled his eyes and grinned as they set out to the woods. He looked to the two Keidran. "You two stay here and stay hidden. Got it?"

They nodded. Curt motioned with the black thing and they got moving into the woods, slowly and silently. Oliver put up a spell that masked their sound to the outside, hoping they could catch whoever or whatever it was by surprise. As they entered the forest, Oliver made a mental note that Curt could walk very quietly without a spell. Not as quietly as he could (and did) with the spell, but quiet nonetheless. Curt touched the glasses, gripping them oddly.

"Looks like a scouting party. About five of them, twenty yards out, that way," Curt whispered with a gesture. "They're lightly armed, but I can't read their ranking. They may be pretty skilled."

Oliver shrugged, channeling manna into his hands. "If you're half the fighter I think you to be, we've got them."

Curt grinned savagely in response. He brought the black thing into what Oliver assumed to be some kind of ready position and crouched down, moving forward slowly. Oliver wasn't used to moving crouched down and silent. Mages were supposed to show themselves, fight with honor. Oliver didn't think that, just because they were at a disadvantage, they should break tradition so ancient. Curt either begged to differ or worked by a totally separate set of rules in the first place. Judging by Curt's skill and practice at walking and moving silently and unnoticed, Oliver put his money on the latter.

The Templar slugged on noisily, their armor clanking and their talk very loud. They clearly didn't expect a very hard fight. Oliver and Curt planned otherwise. "I'll make a distraction," Oliver whispered, though he didn't know why-the spell masked the talk from the Templar.

"You haven't heard how loud this thing is," Curt muttered. "We'd better do it the other way around. You go flank them."

"They can't hear anything we do," Oliver said in a loud voice. He let out a scream. The Templar didn't even notice, for obvious reasons to him.

"You know, that's the kind of thing to tell a guy about," Curt muttered critically. "Alright, go ahead and distract them," he said and brought the black thing back up to his shoulder, looking down it like an archer might look down an arrow drawn back in a bow.

Oliver gathered up his manna and shot it in a burst behind the Templar, which were just coming into his sight. He wondered how Curt had been able to see them, but didn't focus on it. Suddenly, there was a burst of noise from the thing Curt held. Two of the Templar fell. The Templar, not knowing where the attack came from, scattered. One spotted them and vanished behind a tree.

"I'll flank him," Curt mumbled and started moving.

"You'll go out of range of my spell," Oliver said, grabbing him.

"I've lived 53 years without your spell, Lambert. I'll be fine," he said, brushing Oliver's hand aside and moving ahead.

Oliver let out a low grumble and moved in the opposite direction, hoping to catch the Templar in a pincer. Curt moved quietly enough that Oliver didn't think he really needed the spell-at least until he used that black thing of his. Oliver couldn't move so gracefully, his armor constantly clinking and clanging with every step and move he made. Fortunately for him, it didn't matter how much noise he made. Curt may not have had the same luxury, but he didn't seem to need it, either.

Curt took up a perch behind a tree, revealing very little of himself besides the black thing and his head. He looked over to Oliver and nodded. Oliver returned the nod and channeled manna from the ground into his hands. He could see two of the Templar hiding behind trees. Curt had his bead drawn on neither of the two, so Oliver figured that he had the third. Oliver thought for a second and funneled the manna from his hands into the very tips of his first two fingers on both hands. He pointed one at one Templar and the remaining hand at the remaining enemy. Taking Curt's earlier nod as a sign that he was ready, Oliver went ahead and sent two precision bolts of manna at them. The Templar slumped as Curt opened fire with his loud thing. There was only one loud blast that time. He moved out behind the tree, staying crouched down and scanning the woods, moving slowly and carefully. "Clear!" he announced and stood up.

Oliver shook his head in disbelief. "Where'd you learn to fight like that? It's so very different than anything I know."

"You should know by now, Lambert. I had amnesia and thought I was on another world. I wasn't hallucinating, you know, I'd forgotten that I came here. That world is where I learned to fight like that. It was the only way to fight there."

Oliver clicked his tongue and again shook his head in disbelief. He knew Curt better than any other man. He still didn't know him very well. He had to wonder how well Michaela really knew him. He paused for a second in contemplation. On second thought, she probably knew him pretty well.

Curt took a knee beside the body of one of the Templar, the groups' noncom. He removed the officer's communication stone from the man's head and held it up to his own. He listened to the chatter for a second and dropped his voice to a clear, gravely baritone. "Give me the General."

* * *

There was a moment's pause. "Who is this?" came the hesitant reply in Simnel's voice.

"General Lane."

"_Former _General Lane, you mean?"

"Perhaps," Curt muttered. _I guess so, though,_ he added in his thoughts. "That doesn't matter. All I ask is that you let us go free, Simnel. You'll have to devote too much away from the front to hunt us down. It's not worth it. All we want is to go in peace."

"No. You will pay for your treachery."

"Treachery? How do you figure?" Curt asked with a wry grin. "I gave you more tools for war than any other Human in history. You're winning because of me."

There was no response for some time. At last, Simnel replied, "We know where you are now. Keep running."

Curt shook his head and dropped the stone. The stone would be useless within a matter of minutes, anyhow. He and Lambert searched all the bodies for intel and, finding nothing but some maps they already possessed, got the heck outta dodge.

* * *

Michaela twiddled her thumbs and paced impatiently. She'd heard Curt's rifle fire once and then silence. She hoped that didn't mean that he'd been silenced, too. She heard two people walking at the edge of her hearing. One spoke. She could recognize neither the words nor the speaker. She muttered a curse and hid behind a tree, motioning for Katie to do the same. She hid, too, as they waited for the voices to get closer. Finally, she recognized one voice as Curt's.

"It's them!" she exclaimed and went running off towards their saviors. Curt emerged from the brush at the edge of the clearing right as she came up on it. She jumped, wrapping him in a hug and nearly toppling his large frame.

Curt grinned and returned the hug with his free hand. "Good to see you too, dear," he said earnestly. "Now let me go."

"Right," she muttered and let go, setting herself back on the ground.

He grinned and shook his head as he sat his gear down. Michaela noticed that Katie hugged Lambert, too. Granted, far less enthusiastically than she'd hugged Curt, but hugged nonetheless.

Despite this being what Michaela considered an interesting development, Curt and Lambert were, as usual, all business. Curt unrolled a map and rested it across his lap. He studied it for a long time. Finally, he sat a finger down on it and traced it along some of the contours. "If I'm right, we're somewhere in here," he finally announced, indicating an area. "We're not far from Fox territory, and I don't think we'll run into the Templar going through Fox turf to flank the Wolves."

"All of which is good news," Lambert said. "Problem is, Simnel's gonna divert whatever he can from the front and the base guards to take us on here."

"That's why we're not gonna be here," Curt responded and started to roll the map up.

"Easier said than done," Lambert stated flatly.

"Well, sayin' it ain't gonna get it done by no means," Curt said and started collapsing a tent. "C'mon, y'all! Let's move!"

Everyone snapped out of their thoughtful, statue-like state and started doing whatever they could to pack up camp. They were packed up and ready to go within fifteen minutes. Michaela and Katie carried their share now, each carrying anything they thought they needed and the men thought they didn't. Well, not quite everything. Michaela and Katie had thought that they needed the tents. Curt and Lambert had made it clear that, while tents were nice, they weren't necessary. Michaela had carried a tent on her back for about half a mile before she dumped it. Katie hadn't even gotten that far. The men gave them 'told-you-so' glances, but made no other comment. Michaela still carried her hairbrush and packs of dried food and preserved meat along with robes for both her and Curt. She sighed, shifting the weight that bore down on her shoulders and pulled her fur out. She realized why the men had dumped _everything. _They'd covered about five miles in half of a day, moving through some pretty rough brush. It wasn't easy by any means, even though she might have carried five pounds. She didn't even want to know what the men's packs, full of the tools of war, weighed.

They stopped on the top of a large knoll with a view of the plains around them. Curt pulled out a little metal thing. She'd seen it before, when he asked her to get out the headphones. Seeing their questioning looks at the thing, he sighed and explained, "They're called 'binoculars.' Think of them as an advanced, compact telescope or spyglass."

* * *

"By the gods..." Curt muttered, pretending not to notice that he was picking up his new world's vernacular. He didn't believe what he saw. He played with the binoculars' zoom for a couple of seconds and wiped the lenses with a cleaning cloth. Yeah, he was seeing straight. Small dragons zipped in and out of the valley, close to where they'd been earlier that morning, only about eight miles away. The others seemed to take notice, too. Lambert pulled out a spyglass and let out a sigh.

Some of the dragons were carrying bundles of metal and armor, others large _polybolos _and yet others carried troops upon their backs. It was a tactical insertion of troops, KA special guardsmen and Templar Paratroopers by the looks of them, along with LGD (Light Ground Dragon) units. Curt had thought of, but never proposed the tactic for rapid deployment of troops and armor, knowing it'd be used against him if he ever suggested it. Looks like it was being used as such anyhow. Recon dragons swept the sky. With the lattermost observation, he got everyone back to moving. They were much harder to spot when they were under the tree canopy and on the move.

"You what they were doing, sir?" Lambert asked him.

"I'm no longer your superior, and they were moving in LGD units and small infantry units. They were sweeping the sky with recon dragons. It's a manhunt, general."

"Nor am I still a general, and I suppose that makes sense, but can Simnel really afford to divert so many resources to finding us?"

"Doesn't matter weather he can or not, son, he is. We can hope it'll cause the front to break, but there's no way to tell," Curt muttered, scratching at his beard. He needed to shave. _No time to fret about something like that, _he thought with a mental sigh. There wasn't much time to worry about much of anything, was there? Just staying alive. That was all he was doing, staying alive.

* * *

Katie tossed and turned under an oilcloth tarp, trying to sleep. Darkness had closed over them rapidly. They'd sat down in the middle of the forest, not even waiting for a good clearing, but instead settling for the best flat spot they could find. They had no tents to set up, anyhow. Curt strung a tarp between two trees and set all of the gear that needed to stay dry and sat it under the small semi-shelter. They slept under tarps and the emergency blanket. Curt and Oliver traded night watches.

Katie couldn't sleep to save her life. Every noise the forest produced was a Templar, a silent enemy sneaking up to slit her throat. Somewhere inside, she knew that it wasn't, but somewhere deeper inside, she thought it was. Instinct. Instinct drove the Keidran, kept them alive. It was how her kind had survived as long as they had. It was still downright annoying sometimes. She was smart enough to know when it was instinct and to try and fight it. But, when it came down to a battle of the mind versus the body, the body always, _always _won. Fortunately, instinct also told her to sleep. She was more than happy to oblige.

She awoke to find that the forest was still dark. She heard clicks and clinking, rips of fabric, the sounds that had actually woken her up. She recognized the sound armor being fitted. She sat up, throwing the tarp aside to see Oliver fitting his armor and Curt putting that funny-looking vest on again.

* * *

Curt finished fitting all his gear and grabbed his rifle. He dropped the .223 reactor clip, capable of generating millions of rounds using holographic technology, and grabbed another that looked identical but for its markings. It fired .50 cal explosive or armor piercing rounds. He slapped it in and grabbed the barrel. Thankfully, the gun was made to be worked on without tools. He twisted it to the left and removed the barrel from its slot. He placed it in a holster for it on his belt. He pulled out a longer, larger barrel from his pack and inserted it into the same slot, twisting it to the right. He reset the gun to handle the more powerful rounds and re-safed it. Lambert fitted his armor. A recon dragon had spotted them minutes earlier. They knew that running was rather futile at that point. The women were awoken by the clanking of their gear and the Velcro of Curt's vest.

"What is it?" Michaela asked quietly and sleepily.

"Dragon spotted us," Lambert said matter-of-factly.

"No sense in runnin' anymore, not for the two of us," Curt said as he screwed a flash suppressor onto the gun.

"What do you mean, 'the two of you?'" Katie asked in the same manner as Michaela had.

"Lambert and I," Curt said flatly as he took the rifle's reflex sight off.

"You two are going to run while Curt and I create a heck of a distraction," Lambert explained.

"We can't run forever," Curt said and paused to dig for his infrared scope. "You two can pose as natives or slaves running errands for masters. Most humans think all Keidran look alike, anyhow."

"No! You're coming with us," Michaela protested.

"_Nien, _they'll hunt us down. You two should be able to escape," Curt muttered and tightened the thumbscrews on the scope.

"But, honey," she said, standing up and walking over to him.

He sat the rifle down and walked over to her, grabbing her by her shoulders and holding her close. He dropped his voice down to a level barely audible to him, "Remember, more than your life is riding on you getting out of here," he said, taking a hand off her shoulder and jabbing a finger into her stomach.

Lambert eyed him suspiciously, not able to make out his words. Katie's eyes shot open. That was just fine, she would've found out soon enough, anyhow. For a reason he really didn't know, he didn't want Lambert to find out.

Michaela closed her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I'll go, then," she muttered.

Lambert handed Katie a set of papers. "Here, there's one of these for about any situation you can run into."

She nodded. "Glad I can read," she added at a mutter.

"Now, I've made you both packs," Curt said handing the packs to their respective owners. "They don't weigh much, but they should have everything you absolutely need. Nothing more. Nothing less."

They nodded. He saw tears forming in Michaela's eyes.

"Don't sit there," he said. "Go. You don't have time to play around."

Michaela hugged him tightly, one last time. "Goodbye honey. I love you."

She let go and started away. He caught her hand. "No matter what happens, I love you, too. I always will," he said, kissed her lightly on the forehead and let her go.

She dashed off into the night, catching up with Katie. For the first time on his new world, Curt allowed himself to cry, letting the tears silently slide down his face. He didn't allow the tears to stop him from doing what needed to be done. He set up handmade claymores and landmines all around the area they planned as their last line of defense. Lambert performed all kinds of spells and things around the area. For the most part, Curt ignored him and continued to lay out mines and traps. They each had their own way to wage warfare. Curt suspected that the culmination of their different tactics would be what saved them in the end. He didn't reflect on the fact that they didn't plan to be saved or to make it out.

He sighed as he finished wiring the last claymore up. "Ready, Lambert?"

"For the gods' sakes, call me 'Oliver!'"

"Ready, Oliver?"

"Yessir."

"For the gods' sakes, I'm not your superior!" Curt returned in the exact same manner as Lambert had previously.

Lambert rolled his eyes, "Yeah, Curt, let's go."

"That's more like it," Curt grinned and grabbed his rifle. They started towards the Templar manhunting party's camp.

Curt checked that his infrared goggles were working and in the proper setting. They were. His uniform was straight, his pistol where it was supposed to be. He set the pressure switch on his rifle's grip to laser sight. A touch on the sensor would put a tiny red dot on exactly where the lead was headed.

They crept through the forest right outside the makeshift camp the Templar manhunt party had set up. Lambert had put up his silencing spell again, but they still moved slowly, not wanting to be easily spotted. They got into positions with good cover and got to their plan.

Curt touched the switch and triggered the laser sight. It appeared on the chest of a rather drunk Templar. He exclaimed something foul and started swatting at the red dot on his chest, hitting himself rather hard. He fell over and started laughing. His friends joined in, pointing and laughing. Curt focused the laser on the ground amongst a crowd of them. They all ran away from it like it was some kind of demon. Actually, they probably thought it _was _a demon. He had some good fun and jests chasing them around with the red dot. Finally, he let it rest still, only moving slightly on a spot of ground. The Templar brought an officer up to examine it. He stuck his hand in it and watched it block the light. He seemed stunned and called out for a higher officer. The higher officer, a Major if Curt was correct, dismissed it as some prankster's spell. Since he wouldn't get a higher-ranking target, Curt waited for the Major to turn around and put the dot on his back. He squeezed the trigger.

There was a boom and a shaking of the very ground. Curt's heart seemed to stop for half a second, the air taken right from his lungs. The Major vanished in an explosion. The .50 cal was one heck of a weapon. The others stood in disbelief. Curt took his finger off the laser sensor and looked down his infrared scope. He hit the next officer down in rank. They scattered like flies. Many hid in tents. That wouldn't work at all. He switched over to explosive rounds and put one right into a tent. There wasn't much left of the tent. He moved over and hit another tent in the same manner. Lambert started throwing energy and spells into the chaos. That's what it was too, chaos. The Templar, most of them half to completely drunken, didn't know what to do, who was attacking them; where from?

Curt slowly moved forward, creeping from tree to tree, firing in short bursts. A fire began to spread through the camp. Curt came up on the edge of the forest and grimaced. He made another couple shots and dashed across the open ground to take cover behind some crates. Lambert took shelter behind barrels full of some kind of liquor about ten yards to Curt's left.

"The LGDs are probably ready by now!" he yelled.

"Yeah, well, let 'em come," Curt yelled back and patted his rifle.

"That thing may not be as powerful as you think it is."

"I know _exactly _how powerful it is. To the foot per second. To the pressure per square inch it creates when it explodes. If I aim anywhere close to accurately, I can take out an LGD with one shot. Just cover me!"

Lambert shook his head in what seemed like a mix of mirth and disbelief. "I'll cover you. That you can count on. I can't do much, but I can do that."

There was a roar. The sky for a moment looked like day as a dragon breathed fire into the air in a show of strength. "Closer than I thought," Curt muttered. He raised his voice, "Follow me loosely!"

"Got it!" Lambert shouted back over the din of battle.

Curt barreled over the crates and searched for targets with a sweeping motion of his barrel. He found none. He nodded and moved forward cautiously, crouched over and silent. Not that he needed be silent, but he continued nonetheless. A squadron of Templar that had finally organized themselves turned a corner at full sprint. They stopped and begun to assume a battle formation of some form. Curt snapped the rifle up to his shoulder and aimed for their feet. He squeezed the trigger, taking some self-discipline not to snap it. The ground exploded, knocking most of them off their feet and leaving others gasping for air from the shockwave and clutching at shrapnel wounds. Lambert finished them off with blue bolts that lanced across the desperate scene and bathed everything in neon blue light for but a moment. "Well done," Curt muttered as he kept moving.

Lambert grinned and stayed behind him. Curt skirted the wall of a tent near the center of the camp. He could hear voices, "Ready? Move! Go, go, go!"

"Here they come, Lam... Oliver," he said. "Get ready."

Instead of responding in words, Oliver's hands started glowing. A group of men rounded the corner, marching in two perfectly straight lines. _Parade ground formation, _Curt thought. Old battle tactics. Tactics that didn't work against the kind of weaponry Curt held. He brought the rife to his shoulder slowly, taking in a deep breath. He pulled the trigger, pointed a bit above the ground. The lower legs of several of the Templar vanished. There was an explosion behind them and the ground rose up in a fountain of dirt, throwing the lines apart.

Tendrils of blue rolled around Curt from behind. They reached out and grabbed the armor-clad fools that hadn't fallen and threw them to the ground. Curt placed more shots into the area, finishing off the Templar Oliver hadn't.

They nodded to each other and kept moving. Suddenly, a tent in front of them burst into flames. As it disappeared, a medium dragon in light armor with a _polybolos _on its back appeared behind it.

Curt and Oliver cursed at the same time, though Oliver cursed in English while Curt cursed in German. Curt searched for cover, finding none. He ran to the side, waving for Oliver to go the opposite direction. A massive crossbow bolt hit in the middle of the two of them. It exploded. They'd already figured out explosive projectiles? _Verdammt. _Curt touched the sensor for the laser dot and put it on the bottom of the crossbow. He fired. The night was lit up for half a second. Wood splintered. Oliver fired bursts of blue at the dragon's armor. They were absorbed into it. "It's got a spell to make it absorb manna, remember, Oliver?" Curt yelled.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he called back.

Curt switched the rifle to armor piercing rounds and moved the red dot onto the beast's belly. He fired once. Twice. Thrice. "That armor is too heavy for an LGD!"

"No, they've got a different spell on it!"

The dragon cackled. _"Good try, foolish humans."_

Curt had learned dragons well enough to know that a breath of fire was about to come. Instead of running, he straightened his posture. Brought himself into perfect, textbook firing form. He took a deep breath in as the dragon did the same. The beast opened its mouth. Curt sighted the soft, pink flesh at the top of its mouth. He fired four rounds in quick succession. The dragon collapsed in dramatic fashion, neck flailing, smashing tents and breathing a final breath of fire.

Curt whooped and hollered. "That's the way we do it where I come from!" He shouted, slightly taken aback by how country he'd sounded. He shrugged. "C'mon!" He yelled to Oliver. "We ain't done yet!" They started running farther in to the heart of the Templar camp. They charged around corner after corner, moving faster and faster. They stopped around one particular corner and heard voices. Curt peeked around it and found himself looking at a rally point, a staging area for the fractured Templar and KA forces.

"We are being assailed by only two foes, you cowards!" the lead Templar spat as he paced back and forth on the back of an LGD.

"I suspect that this is the last stop, Oliver," Curt whispered.

"Do all the damage we can do before they overtake us? That the plan?"

"That is the plan exactly," Curt said and stuck out a hand.

Oliver took it and shook it. "It was a pleasure fighting beside you."

Curt nodded. "I'll see you on the other side."

For the first time, the two understood each other completely. Separate worlds, times and religions had fostered and raised them. Battle, the military life, those were things they had in common, but the way they battled; the style of military life, they were totally different. The finality of battle, the finality... Or perhaps, the notion of a lack of finality in the life they lived, they were the same, universal understandings of man, transcending time and worlds.

Curt looked around the corner again, adjusting his grip on the rifle hesitantly. He picked out his targets, working from the Brigadier General that paced on the dragon's back down the ranks slowly. He hoped that Oliver knew to do the same. Of course he did. Curt sighed and jumped around the corner, snapping the rifle to his shoulder and firing. The general's chest vanished in an instant. The Templar instinctively dropped to the ground, searching for the threat. Curt had forgotten all about Oliver's spell.

The dragon stood up. "Oliver! You cover the infantry. I've got to take out that armor!"

Curt fired at the head of the dragon, short burst after short burst. The rounds impacted to no avail. Curt needed some weakness, some flaw in the armor to exploit. Curt realized that the dragon's crew was scrambling up its back, the men getting into their stations. Curt shifted his aim and started taking them out while they were still vulnerably scrambling up the side of the beast. They fell as they were struck. But when the original crew was struck down, more untrained Templar came to take their place. Curt switched to explosive rounds and put one in the bottom of the crossbow. That particular dragon, an MGD, had two additional light _polybolos _emplacements on its sides. Curt, now resting behind a pile of crates, took them out with precision shots, leaving the Templar with nothing to man.. Meanwhile, Oliver held off the infantry like a one-man army. Magic was some powerful stuff, to say the least.

Curt had an idea. He switched back to AP rounds and looked down the infrared scope. He took in a deep breath and sighted the dragon's eye, waiting for the right time to fire. The best lumbered as it turned to face them enough to breath fire down upon them. For a moment, its eye locked with Curt's scope. Curt grinned and pulled the trigger. The gun recoiled heavily, just like every time it fired with a .50 shell. Somehow, it seemed worse that time. But the dragon fell, smashing Templar, neck flailing as it did so. The ground was rocked.

There was another dragon, revealed to Curt when the other fell, but it was only partially armored. Its crew scrambled all over it, trying to fit the heavy metal plates. The chest plate had yet to be fitted. Curt took advantage of the fact, sighting the left edge of the white on the beast's belly around the mid-line. If Oliver had taught him correctly, and if he recalled correctly, the dragons' heart should've lied under this place. He fired. Once. Twice. Blood spewed out of the wound and the dragon screeched in pain as it too toppled.

Curt grinned savagely and made a reassessment of his situation. Oliver appeared to be getting tired, and Curt couldn't blame him; the Templar just kept coming and coming. Curt fired three rounds into the crowd of armored mages and called out, "Oliver! I think it's time to go!"

"What happened to this being the last stop?" he called back as he eliminated a Templar with a close-range blow to the stomach.

"We've both got something to go home to, so don't whine!"

"Yessir," He said, delivering a final blow to a low-ranking Templar who seemed unusually skilled for his rank and turning to run. Curt fired three explosive rounds in as quick of succession as the .50 cal shells would allow and turned to run. A rather large droplet of water smacked him in the face as he began to move. _Rain. Perfect. That'll screw with my__ optics for sure, _he thought, grimacing. _Nichevo, _he added to himself.

Oliver held off the Templar as Curt passed him and took up a position. In military terms, it was called a 'Fighting Retreat.' Now it was more of a 'Get The Heck Outta Dodge And Kill As Many Idiots As You Can While You're At It Retreat.' An apt title, he thought with a silent chuckle.

Re-focusing on where he was, he slid in behind a pile of crates towards the edge of the Templar camps. _Ground's gettin' wet, _he thought as he brushed mud off his weapon, ignoring the water that seeped through his uniform. The uniform of a country that simply didn't exist. He sighted the gun with the iron sights under the infrared scope and fired into some of the Templar starting to close in on Oliver. Oliver turned and started to run as Curt fired into the crowd of mages. The explosive rounds caused up-swellings of ground and men to fly in the air missing feet and parts of legs. Curt made a mental note that microexplosives had made some progress since his days in pararescue. Many tools of war had. He sighed. It seemed like man's purpose for advancement was to discover new ways to kill other men. Crying shame, but true nonetheless. He was thankful that the Templar hadn't had two thousand and something years to perfect killing him. _That _was a scary thought.

He fired a couple more shots as Oliver passed by him and took up position in the edge of the woods. Curt stood up, gear clinking, and took off at a dead run. Suddenly, from the burnt shell of a tent, a Templar Sargent jumped up, tackling Curt and grabbing him by the throat. He cursed in German and Human and turned his bayonet on him, stabbing him in the back. He felt a sharp pain in his right leg that ebbed off as the Templar's breath ceased. What kind of spell was _that? _Curt threw the body off of him, removing the bayonet from the corpse's back. He grimaced and started to get up.

"_Kacke," _he muttered as he realized that he couldn't get up. He pushed off his rifle's butt and pulled himself up by his good leg. The other, his right and the one that the Templar had done something to, simply refused to respond to whatever he told it to do. Using his rifle's long barrel as a crutch, he limped back to the woods, leaning against a tree near Oliver. "Oliver! You got anything for this? I can hold 'em off for a while."

"What happened?"

"I'd love to know. It's my right leg!"

Oliver scrambled over, still shooting bolts at the Templar with his free hand whenever he could. Curt shook his head with a reflection of how skilled Oliver was. He was glad the talent wasn't wasted in the Army of Fools. He felt tingling, and sometimes sharp, pinpoint pain, in his leg as Oliver attempted to heal it. Nonetheless, he stayed unswaying and kept trying to hold the Templar off with shots as fast as he could keep them aimed.

"You idiots!" A Templar, apparently an officer well behind their main lines of attack, yelled. "You can't take them down with this idiocy! Long range! Long range!"

"I think that means we had better get out of here," Curt said and fired a last few shots and broke away from Oliver. He was able to limp with little pain.

"I'm not finished!"

"_You'll_ be finished if you don't come on!"

"Yeah," he muttered and stood up, making one last lash of energy and taking flight. Curt turned and took another shot. A bolt of blue struck him in the chest. He grinned when he found that his Dragon Skin vest had absorbed the hit and made another shot before turning and limping away.

He looked around him. "Not much farther!"

Oliver looked around him. "Yeah, that it ain't."

Was his southern accent that contagious on this world? _Apparently so. _He leaned up against a tree and dug through vest pockets. He found a small detonator and pulled it out. Oliver passed him and got behind a tree. Nodded. Curt leaned around the tree and checked the position of the Templar. A little closer... A little... Now! He thumbed the switch in a quick movement. There was a sequence of explosions as claymores unloaded pellets and shrapnel into unsuspecting mages. While they were still stunned, Curt peered around the tree and fired bursts into the crowd, which was stunned and disoriented.

Each trigger pull brought a loud thunderous noise and a sharp kick into his shoulder. Each trigger pull sent an explosive round flying forward and into the target, whatever he happened to be aiming at. When he had the sights square on the chest of a Templar PFC, it simply clicked. _"Kacke," _he muttered. "Oliver! Cover me, I'm out! We need to fall back behind the second perimeter. It'll give me time to reload!"

"Got it!" he called back, knocking out several Templar with deft bolts of blue energy. Curt started limping at a run, fiddling with the clip release. He finally thumbed it and dropped the clip. The .50 clip had ran out very rapidly. He sighed; it happened. The .50 rounds were larger and more complex than the standard rounds, so the clips ran out of energy a whole lot faster. _Too fast, _he thought. He slumped behind a tree just behind the second perimeter and took the barrel out, replacing it with the smaller barrel that hung from his belt. Right as he locked it in, he heard the Templar nearing. He thumbed the second detonator and took advantage of the time the Templar spent stunned and shellshocked to lock in the .223 clip and change some of the weapon's settings to fit the smaller rounds.

"Fall back!" Oliver called.

"Roger!" Curt yelled, firing off a long burst of rapid-fire rounds at Templar a good ways off and turning to retreat. He started sprinting when he felt a bolt of energy strike him in the back. He instinctively dove to the deck and rolled over, firing short, well-aimed bursts. The rounds impacted armor, making sparks and ricochet noises but still making the enemies fall. He grinned toothily and stood to run again. He was struck in the back again. He fell to the deck again, but not out of instinct. Apparently, the vest couldn't take more than two strong manna bolts. He discovered that he was paralyzed below the impact point and that his rifle had flew feet away. The wound sent waves of pain over him, but he had more important things to worry about as he tried to turn himself over and grab the rifle. He couldn't get a hold on the rifle, so he instead grabbed the detonator for the next row of claymores and mines from his vest with his left hand and finally managed to roll himself over, his face and front covered in mud. He pulled out his pistol with his right hand. "Go, Oliver! Save yourself, I'll hold them back!"

Oliver wouldn't do it. He stood stubbornly over Curt, knocking down Templar after Templar with precision, skill and determination until a lash of manna cut him in half, spewing blood over Curt's back. Curt shook his head and kept firing. A pile of shells started to accumulate in the mud beside him. A blue streak removed the pistol from his hand. No, he realized with disgust. It removed his hand from his arm. He sighed and accepted his fate.

He held the detonator tightly, waiting as the Templar neared. A Templar Sargent approached him and kicked him hard. Rain hit his face, washing the mud away as he looked up at the mage. "Look, we've got one to take alive!" he cackled as a crowd of Templar and KA men gathered around him.

Curt cackled himself. "You'll never take me alive. You'll never torture me; take what I know and use it against my friends," he said, looking at the claymore four inches from his head. He thumbed the detonator.

* * *

Michaela ran for her life, ran south, ran home, ran away. Tears mixed with the rainwater soaking her fur. She could hear the sharp bark of Curt's rifle, the roar of dragons and screams of pain off in the distance. Occasionally, the horizon behind her would light up. She didn't know where she was going, what she and Katie would do, but she knew that within her grew the future of her world. That was all the reason she needed to keep running. To make a life for herself. To survive.


End file.
